


Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake - 20th Anniversary

by celedan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Balletdancer John, Balletdancer Sherlock, F/M, First Time, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, alternative universe, balletlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 07:43:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celedan/pseuds/celedan
Summary: Worldclass dancer Sherlock Holmes is offered the lead role of the Swan in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake for the 20th anniversary show. Only problem is to find a dancer for the role of the prince since Sherlock can be a little difficult. But when Sherlock literally collides with burntout dancer John Watson, Sherlock knows: John will be the prince or no one!





	Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake - 20th Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake - 20th Anniversary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849677) by [celedan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celedan/pseuds/celedan). 



> Finally I finished this translation of my German fanfic. I hope you enjoy reading it!

“ Sherlock! Great that you found the time.”

Sherlock shook his opposite's hand who had eagerly jumped out of his armchair when he'd spotted Sherlock entering the little café. 

“ How could I have refused this invitation,” he replied nonchalantly. “I'm a great admirer of your work.”

The eyes of the older man widened in shock, and for a moment he was frozen in his movement to sit back down. 

“ You're surprised,” Sherlock realised. “You didn't even expect that I would agree to a meeting, correct?”

“ Well...” Matthew ruffled his brown hair, and looked to the side a little sheepishly. “Honestly, no. I rather thought you abhorred everything that isn't classical ballet.”

Sherlock made a dismissive hand gesture, shooing away the waitress at the same time after throwing a terse „Early Grey“ in her direction. “Oh please, I'm not my brother. And if you want to know the truth: It was your interpretation of Swan Lake that won me over for ballet.”

Matthew's eyes grew big again, and he almost choked on his tea.

“ I was eight when I saw the show in the year of the premier. And I was captivated from the first moment, I wanted dancing lessons immediately. I swore to myself that I would dance this swan some day.”

Sherlock was amazed how much he so readily revealed to his opposite. But on the other hand, he sat here together with Matthew Bourne who had requested a meeting with him. In the year of the twentieth anniversary of Swan Lake. You didn't need Sherlock's powers of deduction to know what Matthew wanted from him. 

“ That,” Matthew stammered. He cleared his throat before continuing slightly more composed, “Then this is really a, let's call it stroke of fate. You can probably imagine why I asked for this meeting.”

“ Indeed,” Sherlock replied with a confident chuckle, putting two pieces of sugar in his just served tea. 

Matthew nodded. “In  ' 95, I would never have dared to dream that the play would become that popular so that we can now celebrate the twentieth anniversary,” he explained a little bit nostalgic. “I'd braced myself for using all my charming persuasiveness, and even prepared a flaming speech to convince you that only you could dance the swan.” He giggled like a little boy. “And now that's not even necessary any more, but I'll tell you anyway.” His grey eyes regarded Sherlock suddenly full of longing like a rare, exotic animal you just had to possess. “Since Adam Cooper back in the beginning I never again encountered a dancer who possessed his... intensity with which he played his role. When he focussed you with his gaze with all this freezing, but at the same time smouldering passion in it, it always made me shudder. Don't get me wrong, his successors were fantastic dancers too, but none of them had this certain something any more. Except you, Sherlock.” Their gazes met, and in the focus of these burning eyes made of ice, the feeling Matthew just talked about took possession of him immediately. That's why he had his gaze on England's most gifted dancer for a while now, but he'd never dared to hope that he would actually get him to agree. The intensity of Sherlock's gaze, which revealed itself also in every aspect of his dancing, even surpassed Adam's scary and captivating performance. This man  _ had _ to play the swan. He couldn't imagine another dancer for the anniversary any more. 

Sherlock chuckled. “Careful, I might blush with all this flattery.”

Matthew returned the chuckle. “That's no flattery.”

Sherlock's quicksilver-coloured, catlike eyes focussed again on Matthew. “I know,” he replied confidently. “And just because you're honest instead of buttering me up we should clear things up right from the start. No more polite bantering.” 

Barring that he would have ripped out an arm for this role. If he now told Matthew no, he could just as well jump from the roof of a skyscraper.

Excitedly, Matthew skidded to the edge of his armchair so that he looked like a crouching bird of prey who just had to throw itself from the cliff to hit on its prey. “Good. So we're agreed? You will be my swan?”

“ Of course we're agreed.” Sherlock took a sip of his tea. “Do you already have somebody in mind for the part of the prince?”

Matthew chuckled. “If I were thirty years younger, I would dance the prince myself just to perform with you.”

Sherlock couldn't think of another answer than actually blushing this time. He could cope with compliments about his performance because he knew how good he was, but compliments concerning his person or even flirting – and Matthew clearly flirted with him – were mostly unknown components for him which was why he didn't really know how to handle this. He nervously cleared his throat, and tried to keep his countenance, even when he couldn't do anything about his blushing cheeks. “Well, since that's not the case, we face the problem of casting some of the parts.”

Matthew raised an eyebrow because he understood immediately what Sherlock was hinting at. “You mean your reputation? Can't be that bad. You're not the only perfectionist on stage. You should see me shortly before opening night. To atone, I have to treat my team to dinner every time.”

Sherlock scrunched up his nose impatiently. “Maybe. But you may be aware of the fact that almost every danseuse refuses to partner me. I don't cross ways with Irene Adler that often at random. The same will be true for the male dancers.”

“ We'll find someone.” For Sherlock's taste, Matthew sounded a little too confident. The other man knew of Sherlock's partner problems just by hearsay. He simply couldn't get the whole picture of Sherlock's long-time frustration. Granted, Sherlock could be a little demanding and a perfectionist, but after all, it wasn't his fault if most of the male and female dancers were unaspiring incompetents.

“ Already have my focus on a young dancer of my company. Name's Dimmock. He's really good.”

“ If you say so,” Sherlock responded mercilessly and sceptically, but he was prepared to let the topic rest for the moment. “Apropos company...” He fixed Matthew with his penetrating gaze. “My contract will, I expect, pose no problem? I doubt that you would have called me before you didn't reassure yourself that I may be at your disposal.”

Matthew retorted with a mischievous grin. “Correct. Your brother owed me a favour.”

“ How convenient,” replied Sherlock drily. 

“ Indeed. Consider yourself on loan for this season as soon as you sign the contract.”

Sherlock once again made a dismissive hand gesture. “The legal policy of my career, in which my brother just loves to wallow and constantly meddles, is of no importance to me. Do resolve such trivialities with Lestrade, would you.”

“ Already sent him the contract,” laughed Matthew. “You just have to sign it.”

“ Very good.” Sherlock drank the last of his tea, and rose curtly. He offered his hand to Matthew who took it eagerly. “I'm looking forward to working with you.” 

“ Me too. Rehearsals begin the day after tomorrow. Everything else I will discuss with Lestrade.”

Sherlock nodded, and swept out of the café. He had some research to do.

 

Sherlock huffed in frustration. First, the hours long meeting in the morning where Matthew explained his ideas to the only partially cast team – apparently the choreographer didn't plan on making significant changes on the existing program which, on the one hand, made Sherlock happy because he'd known the brilliant choreography by heart for years, but on the other hand he was disappointed because he had counted on new challenges – and now this. This Dimmock kid indeed had potential, Sherlock had to grudgingly admit, but nonetheless the chemistry between them was wrong. Granted, the chemistry never had been right with his past dancing partners, Irene being the only exception, and the audience normally didn't notice such things if the dancers were just good enough, but this part was his lifelong dream. In classical ballet there were no dancing sequences which had the partners working together this intimately like the with contemporary dancing interwoven dances of the prince and the swan. Here, the audience would notice the lack of passion, and to make it worse,  _ Sherlock _ knew that the chemistry wasn't right, that there was no spark between them, and that frustrated him because it stopped him from giving his best. And he  _ wanted _ to give his best for this role, and he wanted the play to be as perfect as never before. But how should he accomplish this with a partner with whom he didn't have a connection?!

He cast a glance on the – yet – unsuspecting Dimmock. Teeth-gnashingly, he resolved himself to give the younger man another chance.

 

“ Dimmock quit.”

For a moment Lestrade stared blankly at Sally, then he hid his face between his hands, moaning desperately, and wishing for a nice, hard tabletop on which he could bang his head repeatedly...

If he thought of it, Sherlock's head on the tabletop would be an even more satisfying alternative. 

“ I told you he didn't like him,” Lestrade mumbled between his fingers. 

“ Freak says there's no spark between him and Dimmock,” Sally added helpfully.

Lestrade really would have liked to swap the tabletop for an Aspirin. 

Desperate, he threw an apologetic gaze at Matthew as if Sherlock's diva-like behaviour was his personal failure.

But the other choreographer just sat with steepled fingertips in his desk chair, looking thoughtful. “I have to agree with Sherlock,” he finally explained thoughtfully. “And apparently I was wrong concerning Dimmock's qualification for this part. Watching the two of them together, there really wasn't a spark. Their relationship was merely clinical and impersonal. Professional.”

Fuck the Aspirin. He'd take the whiskey instead. 

 

“ Well, John,” made Sally Donovan, and looked up from his application folio through which she'd flipped only half-heartedly. Her tone of voice caused a feeling in John that her decision had already been made even before he'd had the chance to sit down after entering the room. He didn't like the drudgingly scraped together regret in her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she told him, indeed as feared. “But unfortunately we have no use for you in the ensemble.”

Upon hearing her words, John flinched regardless. “Oh come on,” he tried jokingly. “Thirty-one isn't that old after all.”

“ Oh, no, no, it's not your age,” she reassured him hurriedly, and pushed his documents to him over the table. “It's...” Her gaze darted to his left shoulder.

Oh.

“ Especially for the part of the swans, well, but your scar is a no-go in this case.”

“ I understand.” John nodded, sighing heavily. “A swan with a crippled wing isn't really that nice a sight, right,” he joked bitterly. Nonetheless, he threw Sally a last hopeful gaze. “And what about one of the other roles? There has to be some where I can stay dressed.”

But Sally shook her head. “I'm sorry,” she assured again. “But there's still nothing available. Most of the parts were given internally to members of New Adventures. There were only a few parts that were advertised for other companies.”

Frustrated, John ground his teeth. Wasn't as if he was still a real member of the Royal Ballet. His last engagement had been such a long time ago – which Donovan, as assistant to Lestrade who was one of the leading choreographers of the Royal Ballet and personal nanny of Sherlock Holmes, surely must have known –, that the Royal Ballet should simply tell him to retire straight away.

Nonetheless, he put on a hopefully unconcerned, but of course totally false smile, reaching for his folio. “It's all right. Thanks anyway.”

They nodded at each other before John practically bolted from the small improvised office. He tried, rushing down the corridor, not to meet the gazes of the other applicants. He didn't want to see their gleefulness – or their relief since his failure had upped their own chances for one of the swan parts.

When he turned around the corner of the hallway, John stopped for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm his wrought-up feelings as well as wrestle down his disappointment. Finally, and because he heard voices coming nearer, he hastily rolled up the thin folder containing his records, and stuffed it in his coat pocket. Hurriedly, he went on to find the exit.

Maybe it was time to face the bitter facts, and hang up the ballet shoes. He should have listened to his sister and become a doctor.

He desperately needed fresh air.

 

Briskly, Sherlock flicked away his cigarette, and fanned his hand a few times before his face. Lestrade didn't have to know that he'd smoked again. But on the other hand, what should a man in his situation do otherwise than pick up the cigarettes.

Flipping up the collar of his coat, he entered Sadler ’ s Theatre through the backstage entry. His morning training in his private studio on the attic floor of 221 B had been satisfying, putting him in a good mood. Relatively good. He hoped that this would remain the case for the rest of the day by Lestrade providing him with good news regarding the restaffing of the prince.

Vigorously, he shouldered his sports bag, and made his way to Matthew's office.

He'd barely turned into one of the many winding corridors in the bowels of the theatre and through a heavy fire door, as he stopped, taken by surprise. A whole mob of loudly blaring children dressed in colourful nineteenth-century like costumes rushed up to him from the corridor which crossed his own. He hastily had to draw back lest he was overrun.

Rehearsals for the Nutcracker, he thought before the throng of children increased impossibly, and, regarding him as collateral damage, shoved him back against the fire door regardless of the consequences. He stumbled against the heavy iron just as someone opened it from the other side. Embarrassingly, Sherlock lost his footing, his sports bag slipped from his fingers, and he toppled back. 

But before Sherlock could strike up an acquaintance with the hard floor, his fall stopped abruptly, and he felt the steady, comforting pressure of two strong, warm arms catching him.

Blinking, he opened his eyes, and curiously looked up into a pair of clear blue eyes framed by long, blonde eyelashes, scrutinizing him worriedly.

“ Everything all right?” his saviour asked in a pleasant tenor.

A little dazed, he blinked, and then nodded stupidly, incapable of uttering even one coherent word while he clawed his stiff fingers deeper into a canvas-clad, muscular upper arm. Notwithstanding his dizzy state, he noticed the obvious injury to the blonde man's shoulder which was why he was impressed all the more that the other man still held him tight in a dip, as well as the fact that he clearly dealt here with another dancer. 

“ I-I'm,” Sherlock croaked. “I'm sorry... for the ambush.” In spite of himself, he felt himself blushing like a smitten teenager. He'd never acted this stupid. Not even as a teenager.

The sudden charming, brilliant smile of the other man left Sherlock speechless for good. “Don't be. My luck after all.” And then the other man winked at him, so that Sherlock felt the wholly unknown urge to swoon like a virgin who'd just been saved by Prince Charming, thus testing the endurance of his saviour a little longer.

Since he probably looked like he would choke on something any minute now, succumbing to a heart attack at the same time, the other dancer obviously thought it best to place Sherlock back on his feet which he then promptly did in an impressive effortless-seeming move. 

“ I-I,” Sherlock stammered again, during which he tried to convince his wobbly knees to not be so wobbly any more, thank you very much. Like a stupid dork, he stared down at the smaller man. 

Who suddenly nodded, and turned the other way. “Well. See ya.” And then, after a last small, surprisingly shy this time, but still unbelievably charming smile (and no, Sherlock's heart definitely did not start beating like a franticly fluttering bird confronted with this smile – why should it!), the man disappeared down the hallway.

And then he was surrounded by silence.

Sherlock blinked. And blinked again, and only the slamming of the fire door through which the other man had disappeared again was able to yank him from his trance in which the blonde dancer'd vaulted him.

And then he sprinted off as if stung by a tarantula, his sports bag forgotten on the floor. 

Panic-stricken, he stormed through the fire door, and ran through the maze-like corridor, but he still felt light-headed which was why he became completely lost, finding the exit only after many detours.

Where there was no trace of his chance acquaintance far and wide.

Desperately, Sherlock's gaze darted every which way, his trembling fingers digging into the door frame, but the street was deserted as were the corridors behind him. 

Sherlock felt hysteria welling up inside himself. He stumbled a few steps back where he had to recline against the sustaining wall. Although he'd deduced the grave shoulder injury within seconds as well as the fact that he dealt with a dancer whose prime age was over already, but he didn't know his name! What if this unfortunate circumstance prevented even him and his normally brilliant deductive skills from tracking down his knight in black canvas coat?!

Sherlock stormed back towards the exit door, dead set on, if necessary, scouring every single street until he'd found his prince, and almost collided with Molly Hooper. Only Sherlock's fast reflexes which enabled him to sidestep her in the last second, prevented a second inglorious collision today. 

“ Oh, Sherlock!” Molly squeaked startled, flinching violently. Laughing sheepishly, she put her hand over her thumping heart, and leaned against the door frame. “You scared me.”

Sherlock only let out an impatient grunt, and tried, without much success, to squeeze past her.

“ I'm looking for Greg. Do you know where he is? We're meeting for lunch.”

“ Could we leave your amorous dalliances with Lestrade aside for the moment, Doctor Hooper!” Sherlock burst out with a whine, and he repeatedly threw jittery looks over her shoulder through the open door. “Did you see a blonde man come out of the theatre? Older than me, and approximately your height.”

Taken by surprise, Molly blinked, opening and closing her mouth a few times like a fish out of water the whole time.

“ Oh, you mean John,” she finally exclaimed in realisation. “Yeah, I met him on the street.”

“ John?!” Sherlock breathed out this ordinary, so totally bland and widely spread name with reverence. But at the same time, he cocked his head questioningly, his heart beating wildly with hopeful excitement.

“ Ehm, John Watson,” Molly added hastily, and watched Sherlock narrowing his eyes which bore through her like a laser beam, looking for more information. She cringed for a moment. 

“ The name sounds familiar.” His gaze drew inward suddenly, and he furrowed his brow, but his mind just wouldn't provide him with information about the name John Watson. 

“ Oh, no wonder if you can't remember him,” Molly explained. “It's been a while that he danced any noteworthy parts.” She threw a sympathetic look over her shoulder, as if she still had John in her line of sight. “Poor guy. Has been a good danseur noble back then, regardless of his size, but a few years ago he had an accident. I don't really know what happened, but it got his shoulder. After that he couldn't lift his partners any more, especially for a whole play, and, well, someday the job offers stopped. Heard nothing from him for a long time. He's seldom at the Royal Ballet, too. And by now he's over thirty. Won't be long before his battered body'll force him to quit...”

Sherlock tried to block out most of Molly's excessive chatter to concentrate on the essential facts. He already knew about the injury, the circumstances that led to it irrelevant for the moment. More specific medical information on the shoulder injury – which he doubted Molly would have given him in spite of all the begging and pleading he could have come up with – and how severely it really hampered John would have been substantially more valuable at the moment. Because that was what had Sherlock impressed the most about the other man; the strength John had applied to hold Sherlock...

No. On the other hand, he really shouldn't be surprised by that. In fact, it had been obvious – at least for Sherlock – what John Watson really was capable of. But apparently, nobody else seemed to realise this, especially John himself. What he filtered from Molly's words confirmed this; everyone in the business had written John off already. And if Sherlock judged John's character correctly (which he did, of course), then John believed in all this demotivating rambling which caused him to lose his faith and self-confidence in his abilities. He'd forgotten how much power he still possessed, and presumably by now, he was so dispirited and disillusioned that he never again had tried to work out what he was still capable of. 

But that's what Sherlock was there for after all. He would make sure that John got back the necessary self-confidence to be a first-class dancer once more... 

Of course, only for being useful to Sherlock's purposes! Which other reason could he possibly have for wanting to help John Watson. There definitely wasn't another reason, and it definitely wasn't the extremely elating feeling of being enfolded by strong, warm arms which had impressed him to the point of wanting to help John. It was only the power of those arms and their potential which Sherlock could utilize. And the shudder that went through Sherlock's whole body as he thought of these blue eyes which...

Whatever! He desperately needed to talk to Lestrade.

Abruptly, Sherlock surfaced from his thoughts in which he couldn't have been immersed for more than a few seconds as Molly had continued talking cluelessly.

“ I've got to find Lestrade,” he interrupted Molly harshly, and rushed past her.

“ Great. I'll come with you.”

But Sherlock already didn't take any notice of her any more.

 

When he finally found his way to Matthew's office in which he suspected Lestrade, he stormed in without knocking. 

Both men inside the office jumped.

“ Dear god, Sherlock,” Lestrade chided, only forgetting the rest of his talking-to because he spotted an enthusiastically waving Molly in Sherlock's wake which already managed to placate him a little again. 

“ I found my prince!” Sherlock declared unceremoniously, but then he realised what he just said, and immediately corrected himself, “I mean, our prince... the man for the part of the prince... whatever.”

Greg was so dumbfounded by these news that he even missed the chance to pounce on Sherlock's telling slip of the tongue or his non characteristic stammering.

“ Oh, wonderful.” Matthew sat up straighter, looking at Sherlock eagerly. “Who is it?”

“ John Watson,” Sherlock declared after a histrionic break.

Greg felt all the eager anticipation seeping out of him like the air of a flabby balloon. Tiredly, he rested his arms on the table, burying his face in his hands. “Sherlock,” he sighed reproachfully in the vast hope to tame the dancer who vibrated with suppressed excitement. 

Matthew switched confused looks between Sherlock and Lestrade. “Who is John Watson?” he asked at least. But none of the two other men paid his question any attention.

Irritated, Sherlock wrinkled his nose, glancing down at Greg contemptuously. “What!?”

“ You do know that he was hurt pretty badly,” Lestrade tried to let him down gently.

“ So what,“ the dancer replied harshly. “That was years ago.”

“ He couldn't lift his partners any more! And it probably didn't get better throughout the years.” Lestrade's voice got louder and more urgent which only earned him a haughty sniff from Sherlock. 

“ He could hold  _ me _ ,” he clarified, peeved.

Greg's quick temper ebbed away all of a sudden, and he blinked confused. “Hold you?! Huh? When the hell was that?”

“ Earlier,” Sherlock explained. “We had a very... eye-opening encounter in the hallway.”

To Lestrade's immense surprise, and much to Sherlock's chagrin, the dancer once again blushed furiously.

But only one blink later, Sherlock had composed himself, so that Lestrade wasn't sure if he'd only imagined this atypical bashfulness.

“ John will succeed,” Sherlock clarified with a final undertone in his voice. “I want him, or nobody.”

“ Listen to this,” Matthew chuckled, but he again was ignored in the duel of wills between Sherlock and Lestrade.

Greg stubbornly crossed his arms before his chest. “Of course. And you can tell after only one meeting – however this may have occurred – if the man is suitable for the role.”

In affront, Sherlock screwed up his nose again given the mistrust in Lestrade's voice. “You know me. Of course I can be the judge of that.”

He really could, Greg knew. But somehow he got the feeling that in this case Sherlock was... hm, how to say, emotionally compromised. “Aha,” he therefore replied sceptically. “And John simply doesn't know about your diagnosis, and only because of that he hasn't had any important roles for years. Somebody only has to tell him that he can do it, and then he has enough self-confidence to cut it again?”

“ Naturally,” Sherlock replied with so much snobbish self-assurance that it brought tears to Greg's eyes. “Only in his head. And now get a hold of him. We've lost time enough already. Chop-chop.”

And with that, Sherlock swept from the office. Greg and Matthew remained behind, befuddled, blinking after the retreating figure while Molly shyly peeked through the open door.

“ What the hell was that?!” Greg blurted out, taken by surprise.

“ Well, I would say we have one thing less to worry about,” Matthew chuckled.

“ No, no, impossible,” Greg discounted, waving Molly inside the room. “John is a great guy, but I know his medical file. The risk's too great.”

“ The risk's not higher as when we give Sherlock a dancing partner which he scares away again in three days.” Contemplatively, Matthew stroked his chin. “I have to admit that I really underestimated Sherlock's warnings,” he pondered.

“ And what if everything goes well, let's say until opening night, and then John can't cut it after all because his body fails him?”

“ Don't be silly, Greg,” Molly chimed in, too. “That's what training is for. And if you want, I'll keep him under strict observation.”

Greg stared at his girlfriend a little exhausted, but nodded in the end. “You bet I want that. But what if he doesn't manage it regardless!?”

Simultaneously, Matthew and Molly groaned in exasperation. 

“ I trust Sherlock's judgement,” Matthew clarified vigorously. “And you should, too. After all, you know him far longer than me.”

Greg gnashed his teeth quietly. Despite Sherlock's difficult nature – to put it lightly –, Greg had to admit that to this day he always could count on Sherlock's professional judgement.

“ Greg,” Molly told him beseechingly, and took his hand in hers. “Have you ever seen him speak on behalf of somebody else with this much passion? And this just now wasn't his normal ego-maniacal drivel  à la I'm-only-interested-in-myself-and-my-role-and-that's-the-only-reason-John-is-of-interest-to-me. This was different. He was like a little boy having free reign in a sweets shop.”

“ She's right, Greg,” Matthew agreed. “This was... there was something between those two. The spark we looked for. And now imagine the two of them interacting right before our eyes. He was hooked just now only  _ talking _ about this John. It will be brilliant!”

Greg couldn't avoid admitting that he really hadn't seen Sherlock this passionate concerning another human being than himself. Ever. He seemed downright smitten with Watson, but nonetheless, eventually, Greg had to concede that he didn't doubt Sherlock's professional judgement, no matter that he may have thought otherwise a few moments ago. If Sherlock said that the man met the requirements of the part, then he had to believe him without hesitation, and he even felt ashamed a little that he hadn't believed him at the beginning. 

And if he was honest with himself, he wanted to see this. He wanted to see the man in action who'd accomplished the feat of turning a reluctant Sherlock Holmes into a smitten teenager. And he wanted to see the fire Matthew talked about. 

“ Okay, I'll call him.”

 

Irritated, John tugged his mobile phone from his pocket. Since he was frustrated enough already, he didn't really have the nerves for any calls. But... no caller-ID. Therefore not Harry. Maybe it was important after all. Maybe the company had changed its mind, and they now wanted to cast him for the part.

Yeah, you bet.

“ John Watson.”

“ John, hi. It's Greg Lestrade.”

Surprised, John stopped in the middle of the pavement, staring into the distance baffled. “Oh,” he made in surprise. “Ehm, Greg, hi...”

“ Are you still near the theatre? They told me you were at the company a few minutes ago.”

“ Eh, yeah?” John's puzzlement still grew.

“ Because of a job for Swan Lake?” Greg went on.

John puffed angrily, and wondered why the choreographer was so interested, and why the hell he called him in the first place.

“ Yes,” he replied therefore a little impatiently. “But apparently they weren't in need of swans any more.” He narrowed his eyes in frustration. This shouldn't have sounded as bitter as it did.

“ Oh, well, maybe. But we're in need of a prince.”

John blinked, and didn't even get one word out. And blinked a little more.

“ John? Are you still there?”

“ W-what? What did you say?” His voice suddenly sounded rough and scratchy, and he had to swallow a few times before he sounded somewhat normal again.

“ We need a prince,” Lestrade repeated.

“ But... I thought, this Dimmock guy...”

“ He quit. Listen, John, can we meet somewhere? Where are you now?”

“ Eh...” John looked around a little headless. “Great Percy Street. I'm on my way to King ’ s Cross.”

Lestrade made a thoughtful noise at the other end of the connection. “Isn't there a park somewhere?”

“ Hm... yeah, Percy Circus.”

“ Great. Maybe there's coffee somewhere. I need coffee desperately.” Lestrade didn't manage to hide the longing in his voice completely. “No, wait. A bit further along there's a rather good pub on King ’ s Cross Road, The Northumberland Arms, if I remember correctly. I need something stronger. Let's meet there in twenty minutes, yeah?”

Still confused, John shrugged. “Okay. Sure. See you in a few.”

 

The whole way to the pub, John's brain worked feverishly to suss out the core of this mysterious call, and he didn't stop when he finally arrived at the pub, and let himself drop onto one of the bar stools with relief, ordering a pint. Lestrade couldn't really have meant what John thought he had meant... could he? It couldn't be a coincidence that he ran into Sherlock Holmes at New Adventures, and not half an hour later he got a call from his... whatever Lestrade was.

With shaking fingers, he clutched his beer glass, and took a deep swallow to calm his nerves. He didn't drink normally. Bad for the build. And this early in the day never ever, but this was an exception. And it should really stick with that. He didn't want to give the impression to Lestrade as if he resorted to alcohol that quickly. Therefore, he probably should drink up fast, and switch to water, but just in this moment, Lestrade entered the pub. The older man nodded at him amiably, and planted himself on the bar stool next to John's, signalling the barkeeper at the same time.

“ Great that you found the time.”

They shook hands.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside John, which he could only contain with great difficulty. As if he had a choice!

“ Okay, what was your call about?” John immediately got down to business valiantly. But Lestrade just held up his hand, signalling him to wait, while he downed his pint in one go. 

“ Bad day so far, hm,” John guessed drily, and Greg sighed heavily, but relieved at the same time (the latter probably due to the presence of the beer). 

“ I really should be used to it by now, but sometimes I just want to...” Lestrade composed himself again abruptly, and cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Whatever. Let's talk about you, John.”

“ Please.”

“ You did hear correctly on the phone. Dimmock actually quit, and now we want you for the part of the prince.”

“ Why me?” John finally got the question off his chest which he was dying to ask since Lestrade's call.

Greg shrugged. “You can imagine Matthew Bourne and my surprise when Sherlock swept into Matthew's office not half an hour ago, announcing he had found the right man for the prince. Either you or nobody, that were his words.” Greg shot John an amused side glance. “Any idea why?”

Okay... apparently the first impression he'd left behind had been better that he'd thought. John'd rather thought that Sherlock Holmes had been so tongue-tied because the world-class dancer was so shocked to be in the presence of a second-rate dancer such as John Watson that, in his shocked haughtiness, he hadn't known what to say.

“ Ehm...” John felt himself blushing a little. In retrospect, the whole scene rather seemed as if from a third-class, clichéd love film. 

“ We... we had a little encounter in the hallway,” he stammered sheepishly.

“ Aha.” Lestrade's eyes sparkled in amusement, eager for more information. “And during this... encounter Sherlock suddenly came to the awareness that you're the most suitable candidate for the part because?” Greg persisted who found the whole affair completely hilarious.

John cleared his throat in embarrassment, and really wished for another beer. Instead, as a stalling technique, he had to make do with the small rest remaining in his glass. “Well,” he mumbled into his glass. “Mr. Holmes stumbled because of all the children in the corridor, and I caught him.” The last words escaped him faster than bullets from a machine gun, but Greg had understood them nonetheless. Who struggled to contain the snort bubbling up in him. He ardently wished that this heroic scene had taken place in the facilities of the Royal Opera House from which he knew that the older Holmes kept them under surveillance. Black and white evidence of the damsel in distress in the arms of his white knight would have made future dealings with Sherlock much easier. If he became overly difficult yet again, Greg could just threaten him with hanging up printouts of said evidence on the black board if he didn't behave. 

But all Lestrade said to this was a composed, sympathetic “I understand.”

John's warning gaze flitted to Lestrade who flinched, caught, but nonetheless couldn't contain a small chuckle.

“ Well,” he tried more seriously again. “Do you want the part?”

John snorted sarcastically. “Do I want the part!?” he asked incredulously. “I can hardly refuse. That's probably the last time someone is willing to give me a chance.”

John's gaze clearly told Lestrade that he'd given up any hope a long time ago already. 

“ You realise that I can't possibly accomplish this,” the younger man pointed out contritely, and instinctively, his hand wandered to his injured shoulder.

Greg shrugged. “Sherlock is confident that you can do it, and I trust in his judgement completely. In return, I hope you realise who you let yourself in for.”

Now it was John's turn to shrug. “I'm completely aware of that.”

“ But you don't have a choice, hm.”

“ That's not it. Of course I don't have a choice, but when I look at this part like at past roles I danced, back when I had a free choice which part I accepted, and when it was an honour to be on stage with certain dancers, and I therefore had fun at dancing instead of it being a painful necessity to keep myself afloat, then I'm really excited about this opportunity now.”

Actually, he hadn't wanted to reveal so much to Lestrade, but now it was out in the open, and it couldn't really hurt if he made it clear to the other man that he didn't accept this job only because he was financially dependent on it. In fact, he really perceived it as a great honour to become the dancing partner of Sherlock Holmes who even had chosen him personally. He didn't know what this made him in Sherlock's eyes, but he was anxious to find out. 

Lestrade scrutinized him contemplatively until he smiled eventually. “Yes, I think you and Sherlock will fit together nicely. You even could have a good influence on his behaviour. You've completely turned his head already.”

Greg had to grin as John blushed and squirmed under his words.

“ But back to business. Come to rehearsals tomorrow, then you can sign the contract. All right?”

In a hopeful manner, Lestrade held out his hand, and only when John shook it, a huge weight started to lift from the shoulders of both men, which at least John hadn't even been aware of any more that he bore it in the first place; it had been weighing him down for such a long time that it had become normal for him. 

He returned Greg's smile in relief. “Yes, all right.”

 

John didn't want to admit to it, but his heart was beating like a jack hammer when he returned to Sadler ’ s Theatre the next morning, this time with a sports bag over his shoulder. 

A little anxious, he entered one of the vast training rooms where eager dancers whirled around before the mirrors already. But before he had the time to take a closer look around, Lestrade'd spotted him, and came over to him with a huge smile.

“ John!” he cried out enthusiastically, and shook John's hand. “I'm so glad you didn't change your mind.”

“ It was pretty obvious that he wouldn't do that, Lestrade,” a deep voice suddenly droned in a lecturing manner before John could answer for himself. 

And there he was. Sherlock Holmes (and in reality he looked twice as fantastic than on all the photos, John realised). He lurked like a vulture over Lestrade's shoulder, and his unnaturally light, piercing eyes were fixed on John eagerly. Then he pushed past Lestrade, and they stood face to face for the first time. 

John had to swallow. He only now realised the height difference between them, and the only thing coming to mind was that he must look like a ridiculous dwarf next to this young god. But he squared his shoulders, and clenched his teeth. He held out his hand.

“ Mr. Holmes. Nice to see you again.”

“ Sherlock, please,” the other man insisted, and grabbed John's hand firmly.

John subtly flinched at the touch, inexplicably taken by surprise all of a sudden. Gone was the flirty self-confidence he'd displayed – why-ever – only yesterday during his first meeting with Sherlock. But he didn't feel intimidated either. He was rather filled with... deep admiration and reverence for this man. And somehow, this unsettled him. He was afraid to fail and not to meet Sherlock's well-known high expectations. Yes, he was scared shitless to disappoint him although they didn't really know each other.

But somehow he got the feeling that he needn't worry about failing if the intense, almost consuming look with which the other man regarded him in barely suppressed enthusiasm was any indication. Sherlock slightly bounced on the balls of his feet so as if he couldn't wait to start with the training, the training _with_ _John_ , and suddenly, John was infected by Sherlock's eagerness. 

For now, he had to discuss a lot of things with Greg and Mr. Bournes so they could give him a thorough introduction without which he would hopelessly embarrass himself. While the two choreographers explained – now and again with the help of some video records – what was expected of him, Sherlock still prowled about behind their backs, and stalked around them like an attention-seeking toddler, or a especially obnoxious guard dog. 

“ Sherlock!” Lestrade eventually exclaimed in exasperation when Sherlock again tried to declare his chagrin by means of diverse snorts and grunting noises.

“ What?!” the dancer countered petulantly.

“ What's got into you.”

“ I'm waiting to begin with my training, Lestrade,” he explained in his how-stupid-can-you-be voice. “I want to start with the Pas de deux scenes.”

Lestrade grunted sarcastically, but he was amused about how spectacularly Sherlock failed to hide his obvious enthusiasm and anticipation behind his usual haughty mask. “Sorry, boy, but first we have to fill John in. Good for you that you're through with that, but he has to get it over with now.”

Sherlock chuffed indignantly. “But...”

“ Go over there, and rehearse the ball scene with the others until we're finished here,” Greg ordered firmly, but gradually becoming irritated. Sherlock exchanged frustrated, helpless looks between John, Matthew, and Greg, and then to John again, while his bottom lip started to wobble perilously before he sucked it in, and started to gnaw on it in a strop. Then, he stalked away with an affronted huff, his head held high. 

Frustrated, Lestrade looked after the sulky toddler with a shake of his head before he turned to John again with an apologetic, lopsided smile. “Sorry, John, but sometimes he's worse than a whole battalion of snotty five-year-olds.”

John shrugged his shoulders. “'s all right. I can imagine that he wants to start at least. Must have been pretty frustrating for him practising without a partner for a few days.”

Greg and Matthew grunted in amusement, though they didn't correct John in his innocent assumption that Sherlock's interest was just for training.

“ Okay, where were we,” Matthew directed the conversation into more professional territories once more. “Oh yeah. I decided to put more changes into a few scenes than I originally planned. Especially the Pas de deux scene of the swan and the prince in Act II. I'll show you later what I came up with because I haven't told Sherlock yet either, but now let's concentrate onto the other parts. I didn't change much there, so, if you know the old record a bit, this won't be a problem...”

Matthew, at all costs, neglected to explain to John why he had decided literally overnight to... hm, well, intensify the prince-swan scenes a little. Actually, he'd always been pretty happy with the original choreography, but Sherlock's passionate interest for John which he'd shown yesterday had been the deciding vote for Matthew to pimp up the scenes at the last minute with a little more intimacy. He wanted to exhaust the full potential this unusual acquaintance held. And with this, a few minor or major changes in the choreography couldn't hurt. Besides, he had the feeling that Sherlock would be grateful because he'd noticed the dancer's carefully veiled disappointment when he explained how little he wanted to change for the anniversary.

 

Surprised, John blinked, as he caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall. Unbelievable, but he had trained for the last two hours! Time really flew by if you had something at which you could lavish your attention, and even having fun doing it (and getting paid). To be honest, he'd completely forgotten what this felt like.

With a small smile on his lips, he wiped his face with a towel. Although training was part of his regular, necessary activities, the last two hours had shown him that he was slightly out of practice, and that pure prophylactic training without a specific aim in sight wasn't the same after all as training for an actual show. And this wasn't even very hard training. He knew of Matthew's reputation of being a hard taskmaster, but until now, he and Lestrade had gone easy on John, just going over his parts step by step which weren't even pretty excessive in the first half of the show, but demanded some skills as an actor rather than a dancer. Sherlock and the other swans had the more demanding part. 

But he couldn't deny that it felt good. Every protesting muscle, every drop of sweat, and every gasping breath being taken into his burning lungs simply felt fantastic. He felt alive again while doing what he loved, and he realised that it had been far too long since he'd felt this way. 

“ Very good, John,” Matthew praised when they took a short break. “I think you've got a grip on the basics now, don't you. And for the rest... just try to get into your role. We have time. I want you to feel good., and not overexert yourself. Just built everything up again slowly.”

John nodded. “I think I'll manage.”

“ Brilliant. And as long as you stick to the basic steps, you're on the safe side. Though I've nothing against a little improvisation if you feel like it.”

John shrugged his shoulders. “Never was the type to improvise. Always was a good boy and did what my choreographer told me to do.”

Greg let out a sarcastic grunt. “Could you put this on a t-shirt so that I can give it to Sherlock for Christmas? The man is the nightmare of every choreographer. Always knows everything better of course.”

“ I'll ask around for a good offer,” John replied with a chuckle.

“ Ha, that I have to see when he unwraps the T-shirt, Greg,” Matthew threw in, chuckling. “But apropos Sherlock. I think we really should try together with him. Otherwise, the poor boy will perish back there from neglect and frustration.”

Again, Lestrade grunted sarcastically. “Tragic,” he commented in a dry ton e. “I never would be happy again.”

“ And what would the older Holmes say to that.”

This shut up all and every ounce of sarcasm Greg felt, and wiped the grin from his face. While an uneasy shudder ran down his back when thinking of Mycroft's epic scorn, he therefore hastily turned to the other side of the room with eager professionalism where it was remarkably peaceful although Sherlock trained there with other dancers unsupervised. 

“ Sherlock!”

Sherlock paused in the middle of his move when he heard Lestrade's voice, and spun around. The older man waved him over, and his heart skipped an unexpected beat. At last!

Immediately, he abandoned his current dancing partner, kicked his ballet shoes from his feet and flung them in some corner, all the time painfully endeavoured not to seem all too enthusiastic like a puppy bouncing over to the three men. 

Greg had to really, really quash his chuckle when the lovelorn puppy bounced over to them, trying though to make as much a professional mien as possible when he reached them – what he, naturally, didn't really manage. For that, Sherlock was much too excited. 

“ You're probably glad to hear, Sherlock, that John has made remarkable progress,” Matthew greeted the dancer, a sparkle in his eyes (he and Lestrade had realised of course that Sherlock spent more time sneaking peeks at John than being occupied with his own training). “I think now we can attempt the Pas de deux parts.”

“ Wonderful, then let's start...”

“ Ah, ah, ah,” Matthew interrupted Sherlock's fervour immediately. “I realise you've already mastered this part, but John hasn't. So, we have to take it a little slower.”

For a moment, Sherlock swept his incredulous gaze over his opposites before he gave in with an indignant huff. “H mpf, all right. If we have to.”

However, he didn't manage even for one second to fool Greg and Matthew. Sherlock was eager to work with John, and if they had to go through every step at a snail's pace, then so be it. 

“ By the way, I changed a few things with the Pas de deux yesterday evening,” Matthew continued, and chuckled when Sherlock suddenly turned his eager curiosity on  _ him _ instead on John. “Shouldn't be too boring for you after all.”

“ Why,” Sherlock started, trembling from excitement, but then he became silent abruptly, pressing his lips tightly together. “Doesn't matter. Let's begin already.”

The three amused men followed the strutting dancer obediently to a more spacious area of the room where Matthew hastened to carefully explain to Sherlock and John what he had come up with yesterday. 

While he talked, Sherlock got more and more jittery from anticipation, even when he still listened attentively to Matthew while John simply stared at the choreographer with a worried mien.

“ Understood. We'll manage. Come on, John!” And with that, Sherlock grabbed John's wrist no sooner than Matthew had uttered the last of his instructions. 

 

“ All right,” Matthew interrupted the training one and a half hours later. “That's enough for now. Now, I want to see the whole scene. And don't look at me like that, John, I don't care that it's not fully developed, but I want to see your dynamic together.”

Most of the dancers in the room had overheard Matthew's words, and paused their training at once to eagerly peek over to Sherlock and John. Because somehow, nobody could really believe that there should be a dancer who'd found approval in the eyes of Sherlock Holmes, and who hadn't given up in irritation after just two hours and after punching Sherlock. This John Watson seemed to be an interesting character, and now, everyone wanted to experience this for themselves. 

John was acutely aware of the many eyes focussed on him, and for a second he felt hugely uneasy. It had been a long time since his performances had been that good or interesting that anybody took the time to watch him. But then he looked up at Sherlock standing opposite him, and the music began playing, and suddenly, all the onlookers were of minor importance. He nodded at Sherlock which he returned with a twitch of the corners of his mouth, then came his cue. 

It was just like during the training earlier: They fell into a mutual rhythm unbelievably fast, their movements instinctively perfectly in sync so as if they were familiar dancing partners for years. It was incredible how easy it was to lose himself in this role. In these moments, Sherlock really was the mysterious, tantalising swan for John which spun around him with unbelievable graceful, but still powerful movements as if he wanted to impress him, casting a spell over him. And not only the prince was captivated by this creature, but John as well. Reverently, his desirous gaze followed the swan, and once and again he managed to jump up from his cowering, intimidated position with almost clumsy movements in his desperate attempt of reaching Sherlock, touching him, and winning him over. A sizzling spark like an electric shock went through John's whole body when he and Sherlock finally came together, when he finally held the swan tightly in his arms, but at the same time being the one seeking protection in the touch of the proud, powerful creature. 

Sherlock felt as if floating on clouds, no, as if he had actual wings himself which carried him around John and into his proximity again and again. It was intoxicating to dance in perfect sync with this man, so perfect that they reacted instinctively to each other, and even put in steps that actually weren't designated which brought them more often closer together in mutual agreement. John, completely immersed in his role as fearful, yearning prince, buried his face in the crook of Sherlock's neck in search of protection. A shudder ran through Sherlock's body when he felt John's warm breath on his sweat-soaked skin, and he wrapped his arms tighter around John. 

And if he had to revolutionise ballet, and write appropriate compositions himself: He never ever wanted to dance with anybody else than John Watson!

 

“ Shit, look at this!” Lestrade exclaimed perplex, and was just short of slapping his forehead in astonishment. “He really looks like a billing, boasting swan wanting to impress its mate. He only needs the plumage to puff up properly.”

Matthew only grinned broadly and smugly. Lestrade was right. If this wasn't Sherlock trying to impress John,  _ wooing _ him, prancing around him, and giving his theatrical best as he did just now... But it had been this chemistry between them after all which he had hoped for when Sherlock had come barging into his office despite himself with delight. 

Overjoyed, the two choreographers watched with eagle eyes every move this unlikely pair made. If this already was such a spectacular performance this being only the first time those two danced together today, then nobody was able to imagine how brilliant the evening of the premier would be in a few months after they had had enough time to get to know each other, and become a well-practised team. 

 

The music stopped, and nobody in attendance dared to make a noise which was why John and Sherlock's laboured breathing echoed from the walls all the more. But none of the two men had eyes for their audience. Their gazes held fast on each other without blinking, their faces so close that they felt the other's warm, moist breath on their skin. John could see the throbbing of Sherlock's carotid artery, and felt his racing heartbeat against his own chest. He felt the smouldering heat of his body where they touched, and it came to mind how much more intense this feeling would be when at least Sherlock would dance with a bare upper body during the performance... a naked, sweat-glistening, slender, but well-toned and not to forget male upper body...

He swallowed, his throat suddenly bone-dry.

Pull yourself together, Watson, he thought in frustration. He's your dancing partner, not somebody you picked up in some club which now gives you the right to grope him.

First hesitant, then rapidly increasing, enthusiastic applause suddenly filled the room. At this, the bubble burst in which they had been just a moment before, vaulting them back harshly into reality. John flinched, and let Sherlock's sweat-slick leg slip from his grasp which the younger man had wrapped tightly around John's hip until now, forcing him to let go of John wether he liked it or not. On slightly wobbly legs, Sherlock came to a stand before him. Visibly reluctant, the younger man turned his gaze from John to direct it towards Lestrade and Matthew. 

John needed a further moment to catch himself, but then, he turned to the two choreographers as well which rushed in their direction with face-splitting grins on their faces so as if they were two small boys who got a racing bike, a Playstation, as well as a season ticket for Arsenal for Christmas. 

“ That was... absolutely brilliant!” Lestrade exclaimed breathlessly, shaking John's hand. He was so happy that Sherlock finally found someone with whom he not only got along, but harmonised with perfectly that he wanted to allow the tears of joy gathering stubbornly in the corners of his eyes flow free. That was probably what a proud father felt like at his son's wedding when he led him down the isle. 

“ It was adequate,” Sherlock concurred which earned him a sarcastic snort from Lestrade.

“ You thought it fabulous as well, so come off .” Lestrade grinned at John. “Honestly. I've never seen a better performance.”

John felt himself blushing under all the praise, and he shrugged bashfully. “Yes, ehm, it was good.”

“ Not you too!” Greg cried with an exasperated laugh. “Guys, you were fantastic! People will stand on their seats, hooting out of enthusiasm.”

Sherlock looked a little alarmed at this image, but John only could join in Lestrade's laughing. “I'd love to see that.” He ignored the scandalised look Sherlock threw him. He shrugged, and looked at the taller dancer. “This is contemporary dance, not classical ballet. I think there it's allowed to show his enthusiasm a little more openly.”

“ Hmpf, if you say so,” Sherlock gave in haughtily, and stalked away. The three man could only shake their heads fondly about his murmured “stand on the seats, pah, when Mycroft gets word of that”.

 

It was long after ten o'clock when John returned home, after a little side trip to his favourite Thai-restaurant, and fell into bed dead on his feet. Tomorrow, his sore muscles would be Hell to deal with, and it would be painful just getting out of bed. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he was so damn happy that he probably wouldn't find any sleep regardless. 

 

The next morning, John, after a sleepless night, couldn't wait to arrive at training so that he was even too early out of sheer exciteme nt (although, to be truthful, it had taken a while to convince his protesting muscles to please leave the bed, thank you very much). That hadn't happened in years. 

Pumped to the eyeballs with caffeine, dark rings under his eyes, but fit and motivated like he hadn't been for a long time, he strolled light-footed through the backstage entrance of Sadler ’ s Theatre, and set about mastering the maze of corridors.

After finally locating the still deserted rehearsal room (to be honest, he was glad to be the only one yet), John set about warming up thoroughly. You always had to be careful as a dancer and mustn't neglect a meticulous warm up period, but he of all people had to be doubly careful because of his damaged shoulder. 

He couldn't have been at it more than half an hour when the door opened, and a in his opinion fabulously looking Sherlock Holmes swept in with flying coattails, stylishly wind-tousled black locks, and a big coffee-to-go cup in his hand. 

Sherlock stopped abruptly when he became aware that he wasn't alone. The instinctive touch of irritation evaporated immediately though when he realised who it was that was at training this early in the morning, too. “John!” he cried happily, and crossed the room in big strides before he stopped right before John.

John had to withstand the instinctive urge to step away from Sherlock since he had yet to get used to the other man's obvious lack of sense for personal space. But he refrained from doing so (and in addition, Sherlock smelled damned good, making this a decisive factor in his actions), and nodded to the younger man with a smile. “I couldn't sleep any more.” He shrugged. “Coming to training seemed the most sensible thing to do. And you? Couldn't you sleep any more either, or are you always an early riser?”

Interested, Sherlock screwed up his eyes, and scrutinized John intensely. “I never sleep much. And this early in the morning, I have my peace from the other dancers.”

John froze. “Oh. Then...”

“ Present company excepted, of course.”

This time, the “oh” John let slip sounded everything but disappointed. On the contrary. 

“ Let's start with training right away,” Sherlock suggested eagerly, and held out his cup of coffee to John. 

“ Thank you,” he put off. “I've had more than enough caffeine in my blood for one morning.”

“ All right. Come on.”

 

Yawning heartily, Greg trotted through the corridors of Sadler's Theatre looking for this damned rehearsal room. The day that he had finally memorised the way probably was the day they left here to return to the Royal Ballet. 

Finally having arrived before the closed door, he stopped, and took a big draught of coffee for reinforcement. Dulled music reached his ears from behind closed doors which meant that Sherlock had to have turned up here at an ungodly hour already, meaning that he therefore had to be in a terrific mood. Another sip couldn't hurt. Then Greg gripped his cup and the one intended for Sherlock tighter before he shouldered open the door... and froze in the door frame. Sherlock was indeed already there, and had thrown himself – as usual – into training full-heartedly, but he wasn't alone. An industrious John Watson was with him, absorbed in a fervent courtship dance which they'd all witnessed already yesterday. Lestrade shrugged after overcoming his astonishment. Good for them if they were so eagerly at it this early. He steered over to the benches against the wall to there drink his coffee in peace, and put Sherlock's down when he stopped in surprise abruptly for the second time in as many minutes. On the bench before him, right next to the one he got for Sherlock stood abig paper cup of coffee. Sherlock Holmes got coffee by himself?! Hard to believe! Out of sheer shock, he dropped down onto the bench, and after considering offering John the now obviously redundant coffee for exactly two seconds, he first emptied his own cup, then downed the other in one go. A huge bunch of caffeine was the least he would need to recover from all the unexpected events this morning. He was rather due for a smoke later on, and he even was prepared to accept Molly's scorn only too willingly for that.

Greg's gaze jerked up as hysterical giggling from the other end of the room suddenly reached his ears, and he couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted the two seasoned dancers lying giggling and entangled with each other on the floor. 

“ Good to see you're having so much fun at work,” Lestrade called, sarcastically shaking his head, and only then did the two men notice his presence. John sat up hastily and rather sheepish while Sherlock's expression turned from laughing to sullen in a split second, and he rose with the utmost dignity he could muster. This morning, he didn't seem to be at his best though. Lestrade was used to much, much worse moods of his protégé, especially in the morning, and particularly when monsieur hadn't been served coffee or tea. This morning though, Sherlock seemed to be in an impeccable mood. Greg had to chuckle internally; guess who was the cause of that. 

“ You drank my coffee,” Sherlock pouted in offence when the two dancers reached Lestrade. Who shrugged nonchalantly. 

“ Didn't look like you needed it today.”

Sherlock stuck out his bottom lip even further, and Greg wondered amused if he would throw himself on the floor screaming and kicking like a spoiled toddler in a strop. 

Probably not since in that moment, John put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder with a laugh, and look at that, in the next second, the petulant look vanished from Sherlock's face. Astonishing. 

“ We could have breakfast together later if you want,” John suggested, and, though normally Sherlock wasn't one for eating, even less so during training, he spun around to John with a suspicious blissful gleam in his eyes, and nodded abruptly. 

Greg really wanted to laugh out loud, but he stopped himself for good reason. If Sherlock was in such a good mood – rare as that occurred –, then, by God, they shouldn't spoil it lest they risked his epic scorn.  After all, the victim would be Lestrade himself either way. But it was just too cute how hopelessly Sherlock had fallen for John, and he didn't even seem to notice that everyone could see it clearly. 

 

Relieved, John sank down onto the bench for a short break (he wouldn't have said no to a longer one, combined with lunch, but obviously, things like lunch were totally overrated in these halls), and longingly grabbed for his water bottle. While he gave his overheated body time to come down again, he let his interested gaze slide around the dance studio and, as if he'd searched for him on instinct, got stuck on Sherlock. The black-haired man was in the middle of rehearsing his dance with the queen at the royal ball.  For one moment, John wished that it was him instead of the petite dancer whom Sherlock swirled over the dance floor in his arms, but then he shook his head with a rueful smile. He shouldn't be so greedy. After all, he got to dance a few beautiful Pas de deux with Sherlock, so the least he could do was not to begrudge others one small dance with the world-class dancer (a small, nagging voice in his head didn't share this opinion though). 

For a moment, while still watching Sherlock raptly, he had to think back on this morning with a smile, on their morning break together. They'd gone to a small café not far from the theatre where he managed to tempt Sherlock to waffles with blueberries and honey. His initial worry that there wasn't anything for him and Sherlock which they had to say to each other in a private context dissipated within the first few minutes. Obviously, they were both eager to learn more about the respective other, and before John could blink, it was time to return to training already. 

Maybe they wouldn't be able to repeat this every morning, but he nonetheless was eager to do this again very soon. 

A movement out of the corner of his eye let him turn his spellbound gaze from Sherlock's whirling body. To John's surprise, Sally Donovan sat down next to him on the bench. 

“ Congratulations for getting the part. Good for you.”

John frowned, and contemplated the woman next to him. He really wasn't sure if he imagined the sarcasm in her voice. “Thanks,” he replied carefully.

“ Heard it went pretty well yesterday.”

“ Yes,” John confirmed irritated, his gaze darting to Sherlock again for a moment. “It's been fantastic.”

Sally nodded, and observed Sherlock's training for a while, too. 

“ But I have to tell ya, you let yourself in for it,” she suddenly continued unperturbed, and John felt annoyance spread through him.

“ What do you mean?” he replied a little strained.

Donovan grunted unladylike. “Oh please. Everybody knows his reputation. And I'm working with him – out of necessity – for a while by now, so I know what I'm talking about.” She shrugged . “Well. At least the Company will pay you a compensation if you manage to put up with him for a while before you quit.”

“ I won't quit,” John growled angrily. Who did this arrogant cow think she was!

Donovan eyed him sceptically, and rose again. “We'll see. I can only give you the advice to stay away from Sherlock Holmes. You'll only be the next dancer in a long line of many who will despair because of the freak.”

John really had to pull himself together not to forget his good manners, and tell this woman where she could put her insolent opinion.

Instead he chose the more diplomatic way, even if he had a hard time doing so. “No w listen to me. Maybe you know Sherlock better than me, but nobody can deny that he is the best dancer of his generation, and because of that, I think he deserves a little more respect.”

John's words had gotten louder and louder to the end, and he'd jumped up agitatedly to stand nose to nose with Donovan so that neither he nor Donovan noticed that their heated confrontation had aroused the attention of the other dancers in the meanwhile. Donovan just wanted to launch into an affronted retort when they both realised how quiet it had become around them suddenly. An embarrassed blush spread over her cheeks within seconds, but they were both much too proud to let this awkward situation get to them. With her nose up in the air, Donovan stalked away while John squared his shoulders stoically, ignored the other openly gawking dancers, and instead sat down again. 

“ You got nothing better to do!?” Lestrade suddenly snapped at them so that they grumblingly got back to their training. Fortunately, Greg didn't come over to John to talk about the whole thing because that was something John could do without just now. After all, it wasn't Lestrade's fault that his assistant was that unprofessional to let herself be led by her distaste of Sherlock, no matter how capable she may be on her job the rest of the time. 

Instead, Sherlock himself drew nearer to the bench John sat on, and after some hesitation, he sat next to him.

“ I...” Sherlock hesitated unsure, and evaded John's gaze. “Thank you,” he whispered simply.

An affectionate smile stole onto John's face automatically even if he was still embarrassed to have caused such a scene with Donovan. But having defended Sherlock, this was something he didn't regret even for one second, and he would do it again any time. “T hat goes without saying.”

Sherlocks shy gaze snapped up again to look at John. “ No, it wasn't. At least not concerning me. Nobody ever defended me like this.”

“ Well, that's sad, because like I said to Donovan, you deserve this respect.”

“ You won't think like that when you get to know me better,” Sherlock insisted bitterly.

John frowned disapprovingly, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I tell you something; I can promise you that I will always defend you against outrageous statements like this, because you deserve to be defended, and if I have to object to something you did or said myself, then be assured, I'll let you know.”

A spark of amusement broke through Sherlock's melancholia, and a small smile crept onto his lips. “I'm sure of it,” he chuckled.

John nodded resolutely, but also with an amused smile. “You really should.”

Decidedly, he put down his water bottle, having nervously fiddled with the cap the whole time, and rose. “ Shall we?” With a question in his eyes, he looked down at Sherlock who nodded eagerly, jumped up, and followed John compliantly back onto the dance floor.

 

A few hours later, John had already forgotten the uncomfortable, vexing situation with Donovan. As long as this woman wouldn't come here regularly – which didn't look like it –, he didn't care about her. 

Instead, Molly Hooper paid them a visit, distributing a basket of muffins generously (it became obvious rather quickly that she hadn't been baking out of kindness for the other dancers or even her boyfriend, but rather for Sherlock for whom she'd obviously fallen rather hard). Even Sherlock had helped himself much to Greg and Molly's astonishment, and that although he'd already eaten the high-calorie waffle this morning.

Reinvigorated thanks to Molly, the rest of the day flew by, and although at seven in the evening when everyone prepared to go home John was as exhausted as he had been the previous day, he was once again happy and satisfied over the progress the play made, as well as his own (that he was incredibly happy about the joint, at times extremely intimate training with Sherlock as well was something which, at the moment, he didn't want to look at too closely). 

“ Do you want to stay longer?”

Sherlock's question made John stop in surprise in his departure so that his sports bag slipped from his fingers again. Curious, he cocked his head, and scrutinized the younger man who, for some inexplicable reason, turned pretty red in the face, and absolutely didn't want to look at John, preferring to study the seemingly more interesting floor at their feet.

“ I don't want to overexert you,” Sherlock assured further, and his gaze flitted up for one moment to meet John's, but then he evaded his gaze immediately again. “I only thought... maybe we could work on a few parts.”

Suddenly, a huge grin broke out on John's face. Sherlock was pretty cute when he was embarrassed. And no, he just didn't think that. His grin remained in place though. “Sure,” he replied casually although his exhausted body disagreed radically. “I 'd love to, actually.”

Now even Sherlock's ears became red because John's tone of voice just now hadn't sounded nonchalant any more. Sherlock nodded jerkily, and fled John's immediate vicinity for now. 

When, a few minutes later, even the last dancer had left the rehearsal room, all tension seemed to melt off Sherlock, but paradoxically, now that he was alone with John, he was more nervous than ever. 

“ We'll take it a little more slowly, all right?” John requested to which Sherlock nodded his consent mutely. “I'm not twenty any more.”

Now even the tip of his nose had to be quit red, Sherlock thought angrily after John had winked at him so charmingly just now.  Abruptly, he turned away from the other dancer and to the stereo.

“ Shouldn't we rather practise the end?” John asked surprised when he recognised the music Sherlock turned on.

But Sherlock shook his head. “Without the others not really effective, don't you think.”

“ Well yes, maybe.”

“ Most certainly. So, come on.” Sherlock held out his hand invitingly to John whom grasped it without hesitation. “The first encounter is the most important scene in the whole play,” Sherlock explained, suddenly short of breath when he stepped up to John who put his right arm around Sherlock's waist to pull him against him tightly. “It has to be perfect.”

“ If you say so,” John replied with a smile. “I'll follow you.”

Sherlock blushed again, and almost missed his cue out of bashfulness. For the moment, he was glad to have to tear away from Jo hn again so that he could dance around him in a wide circle, thus impressing him with his abilities (Sherlock had to admit to himself that his performance hadn't been this formidable for a while as he did now under John's admiring gaze).

Once again, John completely lost track of time while dancing with Sherlock, but they couldn't have been at it very long as they just finished the first round of the first encounter scene. But suddenly, something changed. Once again, John found himself in one of these moments in which he held the other dancer tightly in his arms, his warm body pressed against his from head to toe, and then he felt it. Their gazes met suddenly, and it was as if John had fallen into a hypnotic trance. No matter how much he wanted to (or didn't want to), he couldn't turn his gaze away from Sherlock which the younger man seemed to feel as well.

Sherlock's eyes widened in surprise when he seemed to realise this as well, his breath suddenly coming in shallow, short gasps. 

John had to swallow heavily, his throat bone-dry all of a sudden, and he licked his suddenly equally dry lips. “S herlock,” he whispered, but the other man shook his head abruptly, leant down, and pressed his lips against John's.

Surprised, he breathed in through his nose, but didn't make any attempt to shove the other man away. On the contrary. He pulled him tighter against himself, and let one hand glide through those wild black locks which he would have loved to card his fingers through for a while now. 

Sherlock moaned ecstatically into John's mouth when he felt his firm grip in his hair, and he tried to press even more tightly against the smaller man. In imitation of their Pas de deux contract pose, Sherlock wrapped his left leg tightly around John's waist. They both groaned stifled into the kiss when their growing arousals pressed against each other because of the close contact.

“ Sherlock? John mumbled suddenly against Sherlock's lips.

“ Hm?”

“ What are we doing?”

“ Kissing each other I thought.”

“ Hm, okay. Just wanted to ask before we do something stupid.”

Sherlock flinched barely noticeably, but John felt it nonetheless. “Are we doing something stupid?” Sherlock asked uncertainly, and drew away a little from John to look at him. His dilated pupils flitted back and forth anxiously while deducing John millimetre for millimetre. Confused, he frowned, and started squirming restlessly in John's arms. He'd clearly deduced John's sporadic bisexuality based on his shoes and his haircut. He couldn't possibly have been wrong, could he?

John smiled in a placating manner at him, and caressed his cheek. “No, no. I didn't mean it that way.”

Sherlock swallowed. “Then... how did you mean it?”

John hesitated for a moment, unsure how he should put his thoughts into words. “I don't want to rush this,” he tr ied to explain. “I'm not the type for one-night-stands and flings at work. Not any more.”

“ Do you think I'm the type for something like this?” Sherlock scrutinised him sternly with a raised eyebrow so that John started to squirm anxiously under this laser-like gaze.

“ No. Of course not.”

Sherlock sighed in exasperation, and wanted to take a step away from John, but the older man didn't want to let him go, instead drawing him still closer against his warm body. “ What do you want to tell me then, John?”

“ That...” John once more licked his dry lips. “That I feel more for you.” There. Now the cat was out of the bag.

Sherlock blinked at him taken by surprise for a few seconds. “Oh,” he breathed, and still blinked at John out of huge eyes, but nonetheless relaxed slightly in John's arms.

Once again, John started squirming under Sherlock's gaze, and now it was him who wanted to wind from the embrace, and now it was Sherlock holding him tight. “Listen... Just forget it. I...”

He didn't come any further because Sherlock's lips on his suddenly cut him off. He moaned involuntarily.

“ You're an idiot,” Sherlock clarified when they disengaged again for only a few centimetres to take in much needed breath.

“ Oh really?” John asked irritated.

“ Yes.” Sherlock nodded in earnest. “But you're my idiot.”

John blinked, equally as thrown as Sherlock had been a few moments ago . “This means,” he asked carefully. 

“ Of course,” Sherlock moaned, once more exasperated. “And now shut up, and kiss me already!”

For a split second, John stared at the taller man perplexed before a relieved, content grin lit up his whole face. “It's my greatest pleasure.”

Sherlock only answered with a satisfied huff before they jumped each other again, tuning everything out around them for the next few minutes. 

A rumbling noise made both men freeze all of a sudden, and with wide eyes, they listened into the darkness. 

“ The caretaker,” Sherlock whispered.

John's gaze flitted to Sherlock frantically, all traces of their feverish arousal as if frozen in time for the moment, before he nodded. He tightly gripped Sherlock's hand, and pulled. “L et's get out of here.”

Sherlock nodded jerkily, and let John pull him over to the benches where they hastily and silently threw over their coats and shoes, and then grabbed their sports bags. Cautiously, they tiptoed to the door, and pushed it open a tiny crack to peek through it, but there was nobody to be seen on the dimly lit corridor outside. 

“ Come.” John grabbed for Sherlock's hand once more, and pulled the younger man outside into the corridor. Soft-footed, they darted through the hallways to the backstage exit, and when they stood outside in the backyard, they took deep, giggling breaths in relief, but then they immediately rushed to the main road to find a cab. 

Sherlock seemed to possess a magical talent for detecting cabs because after just a few meters of them strolling down the street, a cab suddenly stopped beside them. John, gob-smacked, but incredibly relieved as well, climbed in after the other man. 

They kept silent during the drive, each one ambitious of looking out their respective window because the alternative would probably have led to losing their ironclad control over themselves which would have caused them to be all over each other once more (and thus probably being thrown out of the cab).

So, therefore, John grimly tried to concentrate on the nightly scenery of the city flashing by outside. The more they neared down town, the more crowded the streets got, the party-goers of the evening just now crawling from their hide-holes to start the evening.

Finally, after twenty agonisingly long minutes, the cab stopped in Baker Street (John should have known that Sherlock lived in such an upper-classy area which John could only dream of), directly before a small street café named  _ Speedys _ . 

He followed Sherlock through the black front door right next to the café into the flat over it. “Does anybody else live her e?” he asked, because he'd noticed the flat door at the end of the hallway downstairs.

“ My landlady, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock replied curtly, threw his sports bag and coat away, and pushed John up against the door of the flat whose own sports bag slipped from his fingers to hit the floor with a dull sound.

“ Then we should be sil–“ John murmured, but Sherlock's lips, suddenly crashing against his, never let him finish the sentence. 

“ Unimportant!” Sherlock hissed into John's mouth during which he obviously couldn't decide between still pressing John against the wall, or dragging him to his bedroom.

In the end, he settled on the latter, and, without releasing John from their passionate kiss, Sherlock stumblingly led the older dancer through the kitchen all the way to his bedroom, a trail of clothes left in their wake.

John let himself fall back onto Sherlock's bed all too willingly when the younger man gave him an enthusiastic shove, crawling after him, and hovering over him on all fours to kiss him once more while he stubbornly tugged and wrenched on John's remaining articles of clothing until he could finally throw them over the edge of the bed. Sherlock sat up, and paused for a long moment to behold John fully. He let  his hungry gaze slide over the well-toned, compact body of which he, unfortunately, hadn't seen much naked skin until now. Sherlock's gaze remained on John's scar for a moment, an ugly criss-cross of knotty scar tissue covering John's left shoulder. Car accident. Clichéd, but no less fatal. Sherlock thanked every deity which he actually didn't even believe in that this grave accident hadn't prevented them meeting. Or maybe fate had brought them together  _ because _ of the accident which had almost ended John's career, John's desperation so profound that he was willing to do this job here and now. Had he been a successful danseur noble himself, he probably would have been at the other end of the world by now, and wouldn't have had any interest or need for this project...

“ Sherlock?” John began to squirm under the intense mercury-coloured gaze – on the one side it made him uncomfortable to be stared at so intensively, but on the other hand, it turned him on like few things in his life could. He put his trembling hands on Sherlock's thigh which pressed into his sides, and he squeezed helplessly before he slid his hands over them in search for a little purchase, and to be able to feel the stone-hard muscles under snow-white, soft skin which had been wrapped around him already today, even if they had been covered by cloth.

Sherlock grinned slyly down at him, and winked cheekily before he wrenched the last article of clothing he still wore over his head and threw it carelessly behind himself.

John had to swallow heavily at the sight of Sherlock's nude body towering above him like a mythical, beautific God. He let his hungry gaze roam over the immaculate, white chest down to the nest of curly black hair in his lap from which rose his stiff, reddened penis, trembling gently with every gasping breath he took and crowned with a pearly drop of precome. As if drawn in magically, John bent forward and licked over the shiny, damp tip, and both men moaned loudly. John grasped Sherlock's ass cheeks, and pulled him further to him so that he could slip the reddened glans between his lips. 

“ John!” Sherlock called out in shock, throwing his head back.

John grinned around the hot erection in his mouth, sliding it a little deeper. For a moment, they stayed frozen like this,  but then John started to suck on Sherlock's cock, and the younger man doubled over helplessly around John's head, his long fingers clawing just as helplessly into John's hair. 

After a few for Sherlock agonisingly exciting minutes, John let him be, and suddenly rolled them both around so that he came to lie in the sheets, breathless and sweat-soaked,  John's calming weight pressing him down.

“ John,” Sherlock moaned again breathlessly, and John bend over him, brushing the damp, plush lips with his own. 

“ What do you need, baby, hm? Tell me.”

“ Y-you,” Sherlock stammered shakily. “In me.”

John took a few deep breaths to calm down his burning blood a little, and buried his face in the sweat slicked crook of Sherlock's neck for a moment, deeply inhaling his scent. “Okay,” he finally replied, equally as breathless, and knelt over Sherlock.

“ Do you have...” he asked haltingly, and Sherlock nodded tersely. He nodded with his chin at the bedside table drawer in which John found an opened tube of lube when he leant across to reach inside. He frowned. “What about condoms?”

Sherlock shook his head. “It was a long time ago. And... John...” He evaded John's questioning gaze, and felt himself becoming red.  “There was someone... Victor... but it didn't last very long, which is why... I don't have any experience with... something like this.”

This abashed stammering was completely atypical for Sherlock, and he was ashamed of it, but he had to tell John the truth even though he was embarrassed to have to confess how little experience he had. 

John wasn't bothered by this revelation in the slightest though. With a satisfied grin, he kissed Sherlock possessively. “Good,” he stated. “To imagine someone having you before me makes me insanely jealous, but I can cope with just  _ one _ rival.”

Sherlock shuddered blissfully hearing John's menacing, possessive voice, and craned his neck to kiss him. “ No rival,” he panted when they released each other. “Not for you.”

He trembled again as John snarled almost animalistic, seeming to swallow Sherlock whole with his burning gaze.

“ Johooon,” he whined therefore, squirming, and his protests got much louder when the blond dancer sat up and left the bed – and even the room!

But before Sherlock could actually put words to his protest, John had returned already, and knelt between his legs, a condom packet in his hand. “Better save than sorry,” John explained with a shrug.

In response, Sherlock snatched it from him impatiently, and ripped it open. With shaking fingers and hungering gaze, he rolled the thin latex over John's erection. John's whole body started to shiver, and he moaned throatily when Sherlock touched him. 

“ And now get on with it!” Sherlock slapped the tube of lube into John's hand, making the other man laugh out loud breathlessly. 

“ Somebody's eager,” John teased him giggling.

Sherlock threw a pointed look at John's reddened, hard cock. 

“ Point taken,” the older man laughed, and opened the clasp of the tube. 

He let his slippery fingers glide between Sherlock's spread thighs, swirling it gently around Sherlock's trembling opening. Carefully, he penetrated him with one finger when Sherlock made an impatient noise which promptly turned into a stifled whimper at the feeling. 

“ Breathe,” John urged with a chuckle, and put his other hand encouragingly on Sherlock’s belly. He bend down, and gently kissed Sherlock's bent knee when he slipped a second finger into him, carefully stretching the ring of muscle.

Sherlock's breathing got faster, and sweat poured from him in rivulets when John, after a while, added a third finger, steadily brushing Sherlock's prostate. The younger man twitched every time under the blissful shocks John's touch sent through his overstrung body, and he let out soft, whimpering moans. 

“ Enough!” he gasped suddenly, encircling John's wrist with constrained fingers.

John threw a quick look into Sherlock's flushed face, and nodded while he gently pulled his finger from his hole.  He carefully covered his over-sensitive cock with lube, pressing himself against Sherlock.

“ Do it,” he nodded, clinging to John expectantly, and spreading his legs invitingly.

Agonisingly slow, John pushed carefully into Sherlock, and only the other man' s “I'm not made of glass!” made him go faster and harder. 

Both men moaned brokenly as John finally sank inside Sherlock's burning body. Shaking, John let his forehead rest on Sherlock's shoulder for a moment because if he would have moved in that moment, he would have come immediately.  He couldn't describe it, this almost crushing tightness and heat gripping him, Sherlock's damp body gasping for every breath in his arms, Sherlock's moans sounding in his ears, and his smell in his nose. All of this threatened to overwhelm him for a minute. It had been so long since he'd last felt this way. 

But then, the moment was over when Sherlock put his hands on John's ass, and pulled. John couldn't contain the choked noise escaping him when this made him slide this little bit deeper into Sherlock. 

He looked down on Sherlock's body which effortlessly was bent double under him. 

“ Wasn't aware any more which benefits it could have to sleep with another dancer,” he grinned breathlessly.

Sherlock joined in John's laughter, accepting his unvoiced challenge, and spread his legs even further so that they almost were in a square angle to his torso, wrapping his calves harder around John's hips so that they lay pressed chest to chest, Sherlock's body contorted like a jackknife.

The first thrust of his hips wrenched loud moans from both men, but after, John experienced everything as if in an ecstatic frenzy which robbed him of his senses, his thrusts becoming faster and harder the louder Sherlock's moans and whimpers got under him, encouraging him with “harder” and a mantra-like “John”. As if through a fog, he reached out with shaking fingers for Sherlock's precome slippery erection trapped between their stomachs, gripping the fevery-hot flesh tightly. Clumsily, he stroked up and down while the thrusts of his hips became more jerky and erratic the faster John neared his climax.

But all at once, John froze in his movements when Sherlock's hand suddenly seized his biceps. Questioningly, he looked down onto the man under him trembling with need.

“ I want you to come inside of me, John,” Sherlock rasped breathlessly, but nonetheless determined. Confused, John launched into speaking, but Sherlock already continued, “Without the condom.”

John returned Sherlock's unyielding, demanding gaze shocked. “Sherlock... we can't...”

“ Yes,” Sherlock interrupted him briskly, clenching his muscles harder around John's cock to make him relent faster. “I'm clean, you too. Mycroft's people checked your medical file.”

John made an indignant noise of protest, but he didn't say anything further because under no circumstances did he want to bring the elder Holmes into this bed. 

Sherlock braced himself on his elbow, and craned his neck to bring his lips close to John's ear. “I know you want it, too,” he murmured with a dark, raspy voice into John's ear. “You want to fuck me without a condom, and come deep within me.” John shuddered at the thought and at the sound of Sherlock's smoky voice. “And I want you to do it, John,” Sherlock whispered mercilessly. “I want you to mark me, to take possession of me...”

“ Oh, fuck... Sherlock,” John ground out in a last attempt at resistance although he knew perfectly well that he'd already surrendered. Because in that moment, he couldn't think about anything else he wanted more. He had to feel Sherlock without the thin latex separating them although the rest of his common sense not clouded by the lustful fog surrounding him protested vehemently. 

Carefully, he pulled his cock out of Sherlock's tightness, and removed the condom before he could change his mind, simply letting it fall over the edge of the bed. He reburied himself inside Sherlock with a trembling jerk. Both men cried out brokenly when all of a sudden there was nothing separating them any more. Basically, it wasn't really that different from sex with a condom. The heat and tightness surrounding John were the same. He met more resistance thrusting into Sherlock as he would have wearing the smooth latex, and he felt more, every nuance of Sherlock's body his cock rubbed against. 

“ Oh god, Sherlock,” John moaned feverishly, and thrust even faster, harder, until with every stroke he buried himself as deeply inside Sherlock as he could, and once more he headed for his climax with breath-taking speed. 

Suddenly, Sherlock let out a choked, broken cry, and held his breath for a split second while hot fluid splattered over John's fingers. John himself made a gurgling sound when Sherlock's anal muscles contracted rhythmically around him. For one last time, he buried himself deep inside Sherlock's body, and then he froze as his own orgasm broke down over him, and swept him away.

H e didn't know how long, but to them it seemed like endless minutes passing them by that they simply laid there motionless, their panting breath the only sounds in the otherwise silent bedroom. 

His muscles still trembling, John eventually forced himself to sit up so that Sherlock could breath a little easier. Sherlock promptly unwrapped his legs from around John's waist, and stretched them out weakly. The muscles convulsed, and were stiff so that John massaged Sherlock's thighs with firm pressure for a few minutes before he carefully pulled his limp cock from Sherlock with a regretful sigh. He grimaced sympathetically when Sherlock whimpered softly, but in the next second already, every sympathetic noise he could have wanted to make got stuck in his throat when he threw a look between Sherlock's legs. The sight of the stretched, reddened ring of muscle trying desperately to close around something that had just been there send a fresh shudder of lust through his whole body. As if in a trance, he reached out to gently touch the fluttering muscle with a finger. He flinched when suddenly viscous come welled lazily from Sherlock's opening, running over his finger. His cock jumped in interest, and John felt Sherlock's intense gaze on himself. He looked up hesitantly, directly into Sherlock's burning, mercury-coloured eyes which scrutinised him amused, self-satisfied (and yes, John couldn't deny that it had been a phenomenal idea to get rid of the condom), but also feverish with reawakened lust. Without breaking their intense eye contact, Sherlock reached for John's hand, and brought it up to his kiss-swollen lips. Swallowing hard, John watched Sherlock's pink tongue sneaking out between his lips, and licking his fingers clean with small, cat-like licks. 

“ Sherlock,” John groaned, and he really would have loved to jump Sherlock once more if only his body, even if his mind did, would have cooperated.

Sherlock let John's clean fingers slip from his mouth, and grinned at him like the cat who got the canary – or the cream. John felt his face heating up. To distract himself, John fished for Sherlock's T-Shirt still hanging half on the mattress, and wiped Sherlock's stomach with it, and pressed it firmly against his opening for a moment as well before he let it fall over the edge of the bed again. 

Meanwhile, Sherlock's grin got even broader as he bathed in John's bashfulness, but he pulled him down again where he arranged a now amused John like Sherlock wanted to have him so that he could snuggle up in his arms. 

“ Sleep,” he ordered. “We'll get to round two tomorrow... and the third... and...”

“ Good night, Sherlock!” John interrupted the younger dancer, and kissed the grin from his lips briskly. 

Satisfied, Sherlock curled up in John's arms, and was asleep within a few minutes. 

 

Blinking, John opened his eyes, and for a moment, he had to find his orientation again. When he remembered where he was, a huge grin crept onto his face, and he sank back deeper into his pillow. 

Soft locks tickled his nose, and he looked down on the sleeping man in his arms affectionately. 

When he'd been offered this job, he wouldn't have thought it possible to not only get a second chance in his stagnating career, but to also find a new relationship...

He froze, and the all permeating happiness which had infused him just now experienced a harsh damper. Sherlock wanted a relationship... didn't he? John had simply assumed that there was more between them since every second of them being together was just so intense. Sherlock wasn't the type for one-night-stands or mere sexual affairs, right? They had resolved this yesterday evening before coming here after all. Despite John's reputation of not missing out on anything, even earning him the nickname Three-Continents-Watson, he was in no way happy with his constantly changing partners. As a younger man, he'd just enjoyed his career's success as well as the appeal this success had on others. And later, when his rising star had begun to fall rapidly due to his injury, he simply hadn't found the right woman – or man. And then, he had fallen into a deep pit during which he hadn't really fancied a relationship or dates. Only in the last few months, he had felt much better. His therapy sessions with Ella had helped as he had to admit grudgingly as well as the sporadic if small jobs he had managed to grab in the ensemble. All of this was a small bright spot in his gloomy life, and that in turn had woken his interest in sex once more.

And then, Sherlock Holmes had toppled into his arms, and in the course of just a few days, everything had taken an about turn.  He still couldn't believe his luck, and he asked himself more than once when this luck would be all over suddenly again... 

“ Stop thinking,” Sherlock grumbled suddenly in a sleepy voice from under John's arm, startling him. He looked down on the other dancer, who's half-mast eyes nonetheless scrutinised him with frightening alertness. 

“ W-what?” he croaked, completely thrown.

Sherlock hitched a little higher so that he could recline against the headboard, and without hesitating, he pulled John into his arms with surprising force for such a lean body. Suddenly nervous, John shakily put his head on Sherlock's chest, and tried to relax. 

“ What gives you the idea I could think?” he asked evasively in a zealously cheery tone, but Sherlock wasn't fooled so easily. 

“ You're concerned,” he reproached him relentlessly. “I'd say you're uncertain about the state of our relationship.”

John bit his bottom lip, but he couldn't deny Sherlock's deduction. He nodded jerkily, and pressed his face against Sherlock's neck, breathing in his smell.

“ John,” Sherlock began cautiously, and pulled John tighter against his body. “I told you yesterday already; I don't do one-night-stands. Or meaningless flings. Ever.”

John thought about Sherlock's words for a moment. And then he remembered what Sherlock had told him last night about his sexual experiences, that there had only been this Victor and John.

Suddenly, he felt foolish which, of course, Sherlock had to have noticed somehow. “Good,” Sherlock smirked smugly. “You remember what I told you yesterday about my relationships so far.”

John nodded meekly, his cheeks suddenly very hot. 

“ Good,” Sherlock repeated. “Then, it would be nice if you could now concentrate on something else. I'd like to fuck you if you don't mind.”

John burst out in a loud laugh, and kissed Sherlock exalted and, yes, relieved.

“ Everything you want.”

 

It was noon already when John and Sherlock crawled from the bed at last, promptly stumbling under the shower together where they spend an outstandingly long time. 

When they came into the living room, Sherlock clad in a blue silk dressing gown, John in his jeans since he didn't have any other clothes here, they ran into an older woman who just attempted to bring in a tray piled with an opulent breakfast and tea.

“ Good morning, dears,” she chirped, and put the tray down on one of the small tables next to the armchairs before the fireplace. Then, she held out her hand to John. “You have to be John. I'm so happy to finally meet you. Sherlock talked so much about you lately.” She winked at Sherlock with a chuckle, who gave an indignant huff from behind John's back before he whooshed by them to throw himself into his armchair.

John felt himself getting red in the face – after all, he wasn't wearing terribly much at the moment –, but he grasped his breakfast benefactor's hand. ”Ehm, yeah, pleasure to meet you... Mrs. Hudson?”

“ In the flesh.” Now, she winked at John before she shooed him into the free armchair, and started to serve them their breakfast.

“ You don't have to,” John protested, but she waved him away, instead thrusting a cup of tea into his hand.

“ That's quit all right, dear.”

“ I thought you weren't my housekeeper,” Sherlock taunted from behind her.

“ I'm still not, dear,” she replied jovially without turning around. “But to mark the occasion, I'll make an exception.”

“ To mark the occasion?” John threw her a confused gaze.

“ Sherlock never brings somebody home,” she explained, giggling like a young girl, and passed John a plate piled with scrambled eggs, bacon, beans, toast, sausages and tomatoes, into which he dug gratefully. “I think this warrants that I indulge you young people a little.”

“ And pray tell, what's the auspicious occasion on the other 364 days of the year you bring me breakfast?”

“ Sherlock!” John admonished the younger man, but Mrs. Hudson waved her hand again.

“ It's all right, John, I understand. He's sulking because his brother was here a few moments ago.”

“ Oh, really?” John looked around questioningly so as if one of the most important and influential men of the Royal Ballet, who, officially, was only a minor employee of the Royal Ballet's financial committee as he seemingly pointed out quite often, came sweeping out of his little brother's fireplace every second now. 

“ Keep up, John, it's obvious,” Sherlock explained haughtily. “He send you fresh clothes.” Sherlock indicated a sports bag in the corner – one of John's sports bags – which he hadn't even noticed until now.

“ Hnn,” he made non-committally. “Terrific image that your brother digs through my underwear drawer.”

“ Oh please, don't be daft,” Sherlock snapped mockingly. “That's been Lestrade. As if my brother would make even one move more than necessary.”

“ Well, then it's all right of course,” John replied sarcastically.

“ I agree,” Sherlock confirmed, completely irony-resistant, and took a satisfied sip of his tea.

John shook his head affectionately, and turned to his really brilliant breakfast once more. 

“ He left this video for you that they plan to release soon,” Mrs. Hudson's voice suddenly cut through the intimate, domestic feeling of togetherness that had wrapped around them like a warm blanket. “Your music video with this German tenor.”

“ Ah, brilliant.” Sherlock jumped up in delight, and snatched the memory stick from Mrs. Hudson that she handed him. 

“ Which music video?” John asked, and put away his tea cup to join Sherlock at the table where the younger man just started his laptop.

“ A few months ago I danced in the music video of a German gothic-tenor,” he explained, and, jittery with anticipation, loaded the video. “Caused disdain from Mycroft's side, which is reason enough to have done it. But furthermore, this singer is rather good which is why I accepted the offer.”

“ Aha,” John made and excitedly leant down over Sherlock's shoulder. He almost reared back when the first loud, bombastic sounds were hurled at him. He was quiet sure to have heard this song before. “What's this piece?” he whispered into Sherlock's ear. 

“ _ Oh Fortuna _ . Actually a medieval drinking song. Melodized in 1935 by Carl Orff.”

John nodded, and in the same moment he remembered, that he knew the song from this Excalibur movie with Helen Mirren back from the eighties. But before he could share his insight with Sherlock, probably just earning himself a verbal bashing for his ignorance, the dancer appeared on screen in this moment.

And John's breath caught.

He already thought that Sherlock looked pretty enticing in just his normal dancing attire, but this costume... well, you couldn't really call it a costume any more. He was only clad in something like close-fitting white retropants. Nothing more. His already immaculate pale skin had been painted even lighter, and his gelled back dark locks were powdered white, whereas his eyes had been heavily lined with black kohl and eyeliner, making them even lighter and piercing than usual. It was a fascinating picture, and John could barely contain the burning jealousy flaring up in him suddenly at the sight of Sherlock prancing around this masked singer who even dared to touch him. Involuntarily, he balled his hands to fists.

Sherlock grinned silently.

 

“ Very good job,” Sherlock stated after the last note faded out, leaning back satisfied. “I hope my brother'll have a heart attack when he sees that.”

“ He surely will,” John muttered. “My heart sure as Hell skips a few beats at the moment.”

Questioningly, Sherlock turned around to him, scrutinising him from head to toe. Then, a devilish, self-satisfied smirk spread over his features, and he crossed his arms before his chest with relish. “But hopefully for some other reason,” he speculated innocently.

With a completely unmoved expression, John grabbed Sherlock's wrist, and without comment pressed it against the clearly visible bulge at the front of his jeans, and at that he was really relieved that Mrs. Hudson had gone earlier.

Sherlock swallowed, his grin oozing even more smug self-satisfaction, and his hand began to tremble. “I'd say, the video was a complete success.”

“ Definitely.” John's head gave a jerk in the direction of the bedroom. “Interested in finding out how successful?”

Sherlock twinkled at him with a chuckle, and rose in an elegant, fluid move. “De finitely,” he copied John's answer, and let himself be led back into his bedroom.

 

They spend the rest of this Saturday in bed, as well as a huge part of the following day, and they only left it to use the bathroom or to strengthen themselves with Mrs. Hudson's regular provisions which materialised on the kitchen table at meal times sharp. 

Sunday afternoon, during a longer break in their frolicking, their way led them farther than just a few steps into the kitchen or the bathroom, namely one floor upstairs where Sherlock showed John his private dance studio, and where they switched from one physical activity to the other – at least partly. 

“ Well, nobody can accuse us of being lazy this weekend,” John giggled breathlessly, and pulled Sherlock's naked body tightly to him while he watched the fascinating white ceiling with a glassy, exhausted gaze. 

“ We were very duteously when it comes to our physical fitness,” Sherlock agreed with a blank expression. He stretched his body decadently in John's arms before he sat up with a slight shiver. “Come on. I want to shower.” With a fluid move, he stood up, and headed for the staircase while John enjoyed the sight of Sherlock's bare ass. “As fascinating as sex with you is up here, it's the wrong season for it.”

John had to agree to that, and picked himself up as well to leave the rather cold attic studio.

At the door, Sherlock turned around, grinned cheekily, and winked. However, he did all this over John's shoulder in the direction of the empty room.

“ What's that been about?” John asked amused when he followed Sherlock down the stairs into the flat.

“ My brother has the studio monitored regularly – for my own  _ safety _ . I dismantle the cameras equally as regular, but he won't let up. Our little performance just now should have been lesson enough for him not to stick his nose into other people's affairs.” 

John stopped dead in his tracks on the staircase. “Your b rother does what?!”

A few steps further down, Sherlock stopped as well, and looked up to John unfazed. “Prob lem?”

“ You bet I have a problem with that! Why's he doing that?!”

Sherlock shrugged, and continued on, forcing John to overcome his shock and start moving again. “He's a control freak, especially concerning me. He's always been this way.”

“ Yeah, but video surveillance!? That's illegal.” John still wasn't over it.

“ He's the most powerful man in the British dancing business. Do you really think he cares.”

Grumbling, John followed Sherlock into the shower. “Now I hope he really had a heart attack.”

Sherlock grinned, turning on the water. “That's the right attitude. And now come in. You can wash my hair.”

John let out a snort. “ Shall I feel comforted by this or something!”

“ _ I _ 'm definitely comforted,” Sherlock stated, once again completely sarcasm-resistant.

“ Good to know,” John replied cynically, but nevertheless climbed enthusiastically into the shower with Sherlock, and pressed himself against the younger man.

“ From now on, we really should do it up there more often,” Sherlock mused, and leant his head back on John's shoulder in a relaxed manner. “Mycroft has to be put in his place.”

John wanted to protest that he would not have regular sex before a surveillance camera only to put one over the older Holmes, thank you very much. But the notion of future get-togethers with Sherlock, and what this could mean for them in the long run made him swallow his protests, and instead he began with a head massage for the big, purring cat in his arms. 

 

When they marched together into the dance studio on Monday morning; Greg greeted them with a knowing grin. “Yesterday, I phoned your brother and spoke with him for a whole of ten minutes during which he was speechless most of the time.”

Sherlock countered this with an amused snort and a “serves him right”, during which John still had to co me to the realisation that neither long calls nor speechlessness were typical behaviour of one Mycroft Holmes. Then he gloated, too. 

“ Little by little, we have to think about promotion for the show,” Matthew declared when he joined them a few minutes later. “Of course, it has been known for quite a time that there will be an anniversary show, but I haven't let be known any specifics.”

“ The press seems to be pretty fired up for the show,” John added. “Only last week, I read an article speculating about the mysterious anniversary show. Rumours say that Sherlock Holmes will dance the lead role.” He threw Sherlock a roguish grin.

“ So, do they,” Sherlock replied amused.

“ Hmhm.  'This season, the prominent dancer won't perform in even a single play of the Royal Ballet which lets us suspect that the rumours are true.'”

“ Well, if the press says so, then it has to be true. I on the other hand have read that they are much more interested in which dancer will be brave enough to take me as a partner.” Once more, he twinkled at John bemused.

“ If you two plan on being all over each other any minute now,” Matthew squeezed through the sizzling atmosphere between the two dancers, “then take a room.”

“ Hm, yes, thank you for the offer, Matthew, we'll gladly come back on using your office,” John chuckled without breaking the flirting, intense eye contact with Sherlock.

Matthew moaned in exasperation while Greg snickered hysterically. “Come on, we let them be. It seems they haven't got enough of each other over the weekend.”

“ But I wanted to talk about the promotion for the show,” Matthew protested. “We've got to set a date for the shooting of the posters...”

 

Humming in satisfaction, Sherlock stood before his dining table one week later, and surveyed the large poster on it intensively. 

“ Even better than the music video?” John asked amused without looking up from his newspaper. 

“ Much better,” Sherlock replied absent-mindedly. “You weren't in the video after all.”

John froze for a moment in astonishment. He still couldn't cope with Sherlock casually saying such wonderfully sweet things from now and then. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat.

“ I think the video should be remade, giving us the chance to dance together.”

His cheeks blushing with pleasure, John hid behind his newspaper. “You can ask if they will do it,”  he chuckled. 

In response, Sherlock made a noise that sounded as if he seriously wanted to consider this while he once more turned to study the poster intensively. He was incredibly proud of this poster. It was aesthetically pleasing, expressive, and the best part, John was on it. Together with Sherlock. Lost in an intimate embrace... 

If it wouldn't have created the impression of him being sentimental, he would have framed the poster to hang it up on the living room wall. 

John shook his head affectionately. He could understand that Sherlock was proud of this poster. He was proud of it himself, and not only because it was visible proof that his career had taken a turn for the better again. 

He threw a furtive glance over the edge of the newspaper at Sherlock's slim figure, and suddenly, once again before his inner eye, he saw the younger man dressed in the costume of the swan like he had been a few days before for the shooting. Of course, John knew what costume and make-up of the swans looked like, but to see Sherlock dressed up for the first time had been a special moment for both of them. John hadn't been able to turn his gaze away from attractive swan even for one second, and he had been glad when the shooting was over so that he could take Sherlock back to Baker Street. He would have loved nothing better than to give in to his animal instincts to shag Sherlock in full costume right at the photo studio, but that would probably have been frowned upon. 

“ Don't think I'm not aware of what you're thinking about behind your newspaper,” Sherlock's amused voice brought John out of his wool-gathering abruptly.

“ What? Ehm...” He cleared his throat again in embarrassment. “What... what are you going to do with it?” He nodded at the poster, this way turning away the attention from himself. Graciously, Sherlock accepted John's diversion, and looked down onto the poster. He caressed the paper lovingly. “I've got this portfolio containing all my posters.”

Even if it was a shame, Sherlock thought. Maybe he should overcome his pride, and have it framed after all.

“ Yeah, ehm, all right. Would be a shame if it got damaged. I have to go now. 's already pretty late an' we've got training tomorrow.” John hastily jumped up from the armchair, still embarrassed, and he didn't even know why.

“ John.”

“ Hm?” He stopped dead in his tracks questioningly while reaching for his coat. He looked up, and met Sherlock's intense gaze.

“ Stay. For good.”

John had to swallow heavily, his throat suddenly bone-dry. “You... you mean... I should...”

“ Yes,” Sherlock confirmed calmly.

For a moment, John looked at him enquiringly before he nodded eventually. “Okay,” he then simply t old him.

He'd never moved in with someone this easy. 

 

In the course over the next weeks, Matthew and Greg were more than satisfied with the progress of the rehearsals, not least because of the growing relationship of the two main acts, and everyone had been more than surprised when they learned that the two dancers had already moved in together. 

Preparations went so well that a downfall had to be inevitable.

Which indeed occurred literally.

“ Sherlock!” John cried in panic, and rushed to the other dancer who lay on the floor, swearing heavily. He dropped to his knees beside Sherlock, and tried to support him when Sherlock at least tried to sit up.

“ Bollocks,” Sherlock seethed between clenched teeth, but not being able to stand up completely at the moment.

“ What happened?”

“ I stumbled,” Sherlock admitted reluctantly, although he would never admit that he'd only stumbled during his partly executed twist because he had been inattentive since the sight of John's naked upper body when he changed his T-Shirt at the other end of the room had been much more interesting than looking for a fixed point for his twist or even staying with this point. But he couldn't blame John, as much as he would have liked to snap at him just now. He had to accept that it was his fault alone that he now lay on the floor, hurting. 

John's hand, caressing his back lovingly and consolingly helped a little to lessen the shame Sherlock had to endure at the moment.

“ Can you stand up?” Greg asked worriedly, and also knelt down next to Sherlock.

“ Give me a minute,” Sherlock had to concede grudgingly.

“ We should take you to hospital.”

“ Nonsense, Lestrade,” Sherlock objected, miffed, and he just wanted to force himself to stand up only for the sake of being right when Lestrade hastily put his hands on Sherlock's shoulders to hold him on the floor.

“ Then at least let Molly take a look. Sally, call her.”

“ She will be delighted at that,” Sherlock mumbled sarcastically, and attempted a last effort to stand up which Greg halted vehemently once more, though.

“ I'm fine!”

 

“ Weeell, I'd say you have strained your gluteus maximus.”

The sight of Molly's anxiously serious and professionally presented prognosis was destroyed by her desperate attempt to suppress her huge Cheshire Cat grin, caused by the fact that her hands lay on exactly the spot she would have loved to place them for years: On Sherlock's ass. 

“ Meaning?” Greg looked at his girlfriend, grinding his teeth. “Will he be fit for the premier?”

“ Of course I will!” Sherlock tossed in affronted, but nobody paid him any attention. 

Molly frowned, and looked down on Sherlock strictly.  “If he  _ rests _ , then he should be fit for the premier.”

“ Well, then we really were lucky this time,” John let out a relieved sigh, but he halted at the sight of Molly and Greg's grim faces.

“ We're not out of the woods yet, John,” Greg harshly brought him down a peg. “The big toddler here never followed the instructions of any doctor he ever met. Resting isn't part of his ridiculously vast vocabulary.”

At that, John's expression turned from relieved into grim as well, and he glared at Sherlock sternly who actually flinched under his partner's gaze. “You heard it. You will rest, understood! I'm not in the mood to dance with the  understudy .”

This prospect made Sherlock perk up, and he flared up fiercely even if in pain.  “That is out of the question!” he cried affronted, and shakily braced himself up on his elbows when suddenly a burning pain ran through his whole body. “I'm the only one you will dance with!” He sank back again, now meek as a lamb. “Fine, yes, I will rest.”

“ Good boy.” John lovingly patted Sherlock's backside, and grinned at him. “I will take good care of your poor bum, promise.”

While this resulted in an exaggerated groan from Greg and a giggle from Molly, Sherlock flew into a rage once more. “It seems as if that's ev'rybody's goal today,” he spat venomously, and threw a pointed look over his shoulder at Molly who almost choked on her giggle suddenly, and hastily took her hand from Sherlock's ass which had still lain there unobtrusively, mainly under the pretence of keeping Sherlock still, she tried to persuade herself. 

Greg needed a moment, and exchanged confused looks between his violently blushing girlfriend and Sherlock. “W hat!?” he thundered disbelievingly when he finally got it. He glared jealously at Sherlock. 

“ Oh please, Lestrade,” the younger man waved away Greg's outburst in a bored manner. “Don't tell me you haven't noticed yet how your girlfriend strips me with her eyes every time.”

“ Y-you're doing what?!”

“ Sherlock!” John tried to mediate. He threw Sherlock a stern look, and crossed his arms before his chest at which the younger man didn't at least possess the decency to look admonished this time. “You could have said that a littler less radical... or preferably not at all.”

In the meantime, Lestrade still was bewildered, and once again threw indignant looks between Molly and Sherlock while Molly's face turned even redder than before. “Isn't one allowed to look,” she mumbled in defence. “'s not as if Sherlock ever responded to it.” 

“ And that makes it okay or what?!” By now, Greg looked like an overripe tomato, and seemed as if he would choke on his angry outrage any minute now. 

“ It's not my fault when I'm better looking than Lestrade, John” Sherlock added not really helpfully. “I'm not responsible for Doctor Hooper's fantasies,” he continued, turned to Lestrade who'd already taken a menacing step towards the dancer still lying on his stomach on the examination table in the infirmary of the theatre. 

“ Sherlock, it's enough now,” John tried once more to defuse the situation, but Sherlock remained stubbornly unreasonable, and once more opened his mouth to spew words which was why John had had enough, bend down to Sherlock, and shut him up through a kiss.

Not surprising, this worked pretty well.

“ Could you please do this every time from now on, John, to shut this drama queen up over there,” Greg grumbled, still a bit sour, but at least a little amused again. 

Just in that moment, Sherlock wanted to launch into a brawling protest again when John promptly kissed him anew, and this time, he deepened the kiss to lead Sherlock astray from the others once and for all, who in turn thought it wiser to make themselves scarce before it started to get steamy right before their eyes here in the infirmary. 

 

Sherlock, true to his word, stayed at home to rest, letting himself be mothered by Mrs. Hudson. After all, he could barely walk because of his strained gluteus maximu s. Normally, he didn't care about his body, this wasn't even the most severe injury he'd ever had, but in that case, he had to think of John (and in reverse, of himself however). John was restricted in his training as well because of Sherlock's absence, and had to dance with the understudy. And just to think of that was unbearable for Sherlock. It was bad enough that this ineffable understudy got his hands on John during rehearsals, but to allow this for the premier as well was definitely too much for Sherlock. He alone had the right to dance this premier and every other following show with John Watson. None other! And if it wasn't that, unfortunately, John needed the continued training to built up his muscles, then Sherlock would have demanded that he stay at home as well.

But so, he had to lie here on the couch with gritted teeth, and go through the choreography in his mind palace – which for him, of course, was sufficient training as well –, and suffer that in the meantime, John trained with some other...  _ dancer _ over at Sadler's Theatre until Sherlock was recovered. And he would recover. As fast as possible. He would do everything to ensure that  _ he _ was the one who danced with John at the premier.

“ What are you doing?”

Sherlock opened his eyes in surprise, and craned his neck to be able to see John from his position from the couch. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn't heard John come in. He examined him from head to toe to deduce his day's events, but then he closed his eyes again, and brought his folded hands up under his chin.

“ I'm practising,” Sherlock replied as if that was perfectly obvious.

John grunted in amusement. “From the couch?!”

“ I practise in my mind palace.”

“ Really? In your mind!?”

“ Naturally. You should try it some time.”

“ Ehhm, no thanks. That's too complicated for me.”

“ But then you could stay here, and wouldn't have to suffer inferior dancers during training.”

“ Yeah, everyone really is a bit frustrated,” John had to admit with a sigh, and put his sports bag down to squeeze himself next to Sherlock onto the sofa. He bend down to kiss him on the forehead in greeting which sent a languorous bodily shudder through Sherlock. Though he tried not to show any reaction. 

“ The guy is great, but somehow, the chemistry wasn’t right. Not like with us.”

“ I'm not surprised,” Sherlock noted contemptuous. 

“ Why? Have you ever worked with this dancer?”

“ Never heard of him, but it's obvious he is incompetent.”

John didn't reply anything for a moment which was why Sherlock opened his eyes questioningly.  Unexpectedly, he saw himself confronted with a huge grin on John's face. 

“ What?!”

“ You're jealous!”

“ Pardon me!” Sherlock surged up affronted before, in the next moment, he let himself sink back theatrically like a swooning diva, scrunched up his nose. “That is not true.”

“ This is so true, love.” John kissed him on the forehead once more, then on his mouth so that Sherlock could feel John's grin on his lips. “But I think it's sweet,” John murmured against Sherlock's lips.

A sudden clearing of the throat made both men part abruptly from each other. 

Sherlock didn't even have to open his eyes to know who stood in the door to bother them, and John, at first, couldn't seem to really handle that he suddenly was more or less confronted with his boss. 

“ What do you want, Mycroft,” Sherlock droned disdainfully, and would have loved to retreat completely into his mind palace to block out his brother. “Thought you would have been here sooner.”

“ You know how it is,” the older Holmes replied with a sickly sweet smile. “The Royal Ballet won't lead itself on its own.” He stepped fully into the living room, and for a moment, he looked down onto the pair on the sofa, his smile something neither John nor Sherlock really liked.

“ I am so pleased to finally meet you, John. I have heard so much about you.”

Although John was highly irritated, he jumped up to shake hands with Mycroft which he ignored. Even more irritated now, he sat down again stiffly next to Sherlock who didn't show the slightest inclination to take notice of his brother for the moment. 

“ Leave John alone,” Sherlock hissed finally after a few stifling moments of silence while there had been a glaring-match between John and Mycroft as well as a competition of which Holmes could ignore the other best. “The reason for your  _ visit _ , if you please.”

Mycroft sighed factitiously. “Still no manners as I can see despite the highly-praised good influence of your dancing partner. But fine.” Mycroft sad down in John's armchair, and leant back nonchalantly. 

If he now expected to be invited for tea, he could wait till he dropped dead, John thought. Like hell he would offer the older Holmes something. 

“ As you might have heard from Mr. Bournes, the promotional campaign was well received both from the press and the audience.”

And indeed, Matt had mentioned something like that to John. He even joked that in that case, he had to revive Dorian Grey again so that Sherlock and John could dance together again. 

“ The show has been extremely popular before all this,” Mycroft continued, looking a little strained. “So, this strong interest isn't that surprising, but your participation, brother dear, gave this whole affair a whole new appeal since you are known to the public at large after all.” 

“ Paining you immensely, of course,” Sherlock confronted his brother with relish.

“ I'm simply overcome with a certain discomfort as to the whys of this fact,” Mycroft countered, put out.

“ Oh please, Mycroft, this video was a perfectly legitimate thing, and my acting as consultant in this movie back then wasn't something to moan about either. That, for one thing, they were inept to the last man on this set, so that, I have to admit, the whole thing got slightly out of control, and for another thing that my tiny role in this movie proved  _ that _ popular wasn't my fault in the least.” 

“ Your popularity with womankind isn't thanks to your dancing skills, I assure you, brother dear,” Mycroft retorted pointedly. 

“ And pray tell why else... oh.” Sherlock fell silent, and pressed his lips tightly together, now equally as disgruntled. “You are a miserable traditionalist concerning modern dance though, and now come to the point.” 

“ Since everybody awaits this show with bated breath, it can't be avoided that there are certain obligations expected of you two,” Mycroft continued, slightly miffed. “Interviews for example. Therefore, I took the liberty to approve of a cover story including an exclusive interview with Dancing Times.”

“ Excuse me!” Sherlock flared up as much as his injury allowed. “Why are you so supportive of this all of a sudden? Why are you suddenly that interested in a project that's not purely classical ballet?”

Reluctantly, Mycroft pressed his lips together so that, to John's eyes, he bore a striking resemblance to his little brother in that moment although normally, their appearances didn't have much in common. “I tho ught it a good opportunity to improve your abrasive reputation.”

“ So, did you,” Sherlock interrupted him venomously, which earned him a similar waspy look from the older Holmes for the interruption.

Contemplatively, Mycroft turned the handle of his umbrella between his fingers, staring at it lost in thought. “As opposed to us, brother dear, people are sentimental. Especially when confronted with such heart-felt love stories like yours, the masses can be enticed frighteningly easy.”

Sherlock had to agree with his brother whether he liked it or not. Such a story would come like a real bombshell, even if it made him uncomfortable to flaunt his relationship with John for the public. But on the other hand, he had to think of John in all of this. This immense publicity would benefit John's career, critics and audience alike would remember him again, and be reminded of how good he had been, and would be again. Even if his comeback would tear him from Sherlock's side eventually, and be it only for a few weeks or months when they would perform in completely different parts of the world, Sherlock didn't have the heart to get in the way of John's dream. For once in his life, he thought of the things good for others, but just now, he  _ wanted _ to be egoistical. But the thought of John maybe despising him one day when he only accompanied Sherlock as his ever faithful groupie to the most renowned theatres of this world, but every time imagining himself on these stages, was unbearable to Sherlock. No matter what, he couldn't let John go any more. He needed him. And because of that, he would do everything to make John happy to keep him by his side.

While gnawing on his lower lip, he threw a contemplative gaze at John who still sat by his side on the couch.

Because on the other hand, he was incredibly proud of John and their relationship. Sherlock literally burned for the chance to present the world this unique catch he had in John. Everybody should see how perfect John was, and at the same time, they should all become green with envy that he was Sherlock's and nobody else's. He'd never felt this urge to show off with something that much, not even with his intellect or his dancing skills.

“ Oh, for all I care,” he finally gave his brother his blessing in a bored manner, and hoped that he wouldn't guess just by looking at him the inner conflict Sherlock fought with himself. At least John was never supposed to learn of it. 

“ Splendid.” The false, sickly-sweet smile Mycroft threw him was indicative that he at least had an inkling of Sherlock's thoughts. “I will pass it on.”

“ Even if nobody asks for my opinion here, I still think it's a good idea to publish this story.” Smiling, John reached for Sherlock's hands still lying folded under Sherlock's chin. “It would be good if people saw you in a more positive light. You have so much to give, and you're such a wonderful person. You don't deserve to be belittled.”

Oh John. Sherlock felt a lump in his throat choking him, and suddenly everything became warm inside. John was so incredibly selfless and compassionate. The exact opposite of Sherlock. He therefore hadn't the heart to correct John that his bad reputation wasn't by chance. He was arrogant, a perfectionist, harsh, aloof... but never to John. Not John... well, maybe not one hundred percent. He couldn't switch it off every time after all. 

He grabbed John's hand tighter, and swallowed heavily. “If you want to,” he choked out, and still looked with wide eyes at John, astonished and overwhelmed. John met his stunned gaze, and smiled lovingly at him.

Sherlock's eyes grew even bigger before he closed them ecstatically as John suddenly bend down to him to kiss him.

“ That seems to be my cue,” Mycroft's voice reached Sherlock's ear as if through thick fog. He dismissed his brother with an impatient wave of the hand.

“ It won't be so bad, you'll see,” John promised when he drew back from Sherlock again after a few minutes. The younger man sunk back into the couch, breathless and flushed, held down by John's comfortable weight. 

“ I think it's nice of your brother that he arranged this for you, even if I don't think that highly of him otherwise.”

And just like that, the weightless feeling of comfort started to fade, making way for irritation inside of Sherlock. “Please don't succumb to any illusions, John. My brother is even less of a philanthropist than I am.” Grumbling, he wrapped his arms around John, and pulled him on top of him. “This article is his revenge for all the sex he had to watch upstairs and for the music video.” 

John giggled, trying to stifle it in Sherlock's shoulder. “If you think so.”

“ I'm sure of it,” Sherlock stated confidently.

John kept silent for a contemplative moment. “Shall we give your brother some more memorable moments?”

Sherlock grinned hugely when he heard the impish tone in John's voice. “A bsolutely.”

Grinning maniacally, Sherlock let John help him upstairs into the studio. The image of his brother's pinched face when he saw the CCTV next time was worth every ounce of pain from climbing the stairs as well as the hard floor under his aching bottom.

 

“ It's pretty good, don't you think,” Lestrade asked rather rhetorically a few days later, and waved the magazine before Sherlock's nose.

“ Adequate,” Sherlock replied, screwing up his nose. Lestrade really couldn't expect a more enthusiastic reaction from him. The overinflated story of the big love affair on and behind the stage had enchanted thousands of people as it seemed, and had increased the number of copies of Dancing Times dramatically. Of course, the outcome was much too sentimental and sappy for Sherlock's taste. As the majority of humanity preferred. Even John had been ecstatic despite his initial wariness when he held the magazine in his hands the first time. All in all though, Sherlock himself was rather pleased how they had portrayed their story, overly sentimental of course, but at least correct. That he, inwardly glowing with pride after he'd skimmed the article in John's presence disdainfully, carefully stowed away the magazine together with the poster was something John didn't really need to know. And much less Lestrade.

“ Ole grinch, you,” grumbled Greg, chuckling. “People're falling over themselves about your story.”

Sherlock shrugged without answering.

“ 'Furthermore, I asked Mr. Holmes about his current injury, but he assured me that he will be recovered for the evening of the premier' ,” Lestrade cited then suddenly, and threw a sceptical look at Sherlock over the edge of the magazine. “Is this assessment of yours really accurate?”

Sherlock squirmed on the couch. “You shou ld know since  _ you _ 're the one in a relationship with my doctor. What are you two talking about with each other.”

Lestrade grunted cynically. “Even if it's hard for you to comprehend, but our time together doesn't always revolve around you.”

Haughtily, Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “Around nothing better either, I be t,” he grumbled, but lectured Greg out loud, “She gave me the okay. Come Monday, I can resume my training. That leaves us three weeks until the premier. That's more than enough.”

“ I hope so.”

“ When was I ever wrong in something like that?” Sherlock reproached him. 

“ Never,” Greg had to admit. “But on the other side, I know you long enough to know that you like to neglect your body if it suits you.”

Sherlock nibbled on his bottom lip. “Not this time,” he said through clenched teeth.

Lestrade grinned as he realised Sherlock's motives behind all this. “Of course. I'm counting on it.”

“ Do that,” Sherlock sniffed loftily.

 

Stock still as a marble stature, Sherlock stood at the  side of the edge of the stage, peeking out into the rapidly filling auditorium. The swell of murmuring and laughter of the audience surged against him like a roaring wave against which he had to brace himself while trying to find his inner calm in its midst. 

He flinched heavily when a warm hand was laid on his naked back, but already in the next moment, he relaxed when he realised whom it was that dared so bluntly touch him.

“ Ev'rything will go fabulous, love,” John murmured while soothingly stroking Sherlock's back.

“ I'm not concerned about that,” Sherlock parried with a shrug. 

„ But you're concerned about the people's reactions to the show,” John deduced knowingly.

Sherlock shrugged again with forced indifference which prompted John to wrap his arm around Sherlock's waist and pull him near, grinning lovingly all the while. “Don't fret. Everyone who sees you is enraptured. And the show is pretty popular anyway.”

“ But this isn't about me, John!” Sherlock threw the other dancer an affronted look from the corner of his eye, and bit his bottom lip nervously at the same time. “I want them to love  _ you _ !”

John felt his heart starting to melt, and he squeezed a little harder, leaning his head against Sherlock's shoulder. “I'm not concerned about that,” he replied with a smile, while he, like Sherlock, watched the audience. “It's just about us. And, you said it yourself, everyone said it; We are perfect together.”

Sherlock carefully laid his head on John's, and exhaled in relief. “You're right.”

“ See? And now no more gloomy thoughts. It's starting in a few minutes.”

John let go of Sherlock, and wanted to disappear in the dim lights of the backstage area, but Sherlock caught a hold of his wrist, retaining him. “John?”

Quizzically, John turned to him so that Sherlock faltered for a moment under his clear, blue, glittering eyes. But then his nervous features relaxed, and he smiled at John. “I love you.”

John returned the smile wholeheartedly. “I love you, too.” He would have liked to kiss Sherlock in this moment, but he didn't dare to because of the make-up. Instead he slipped his hand in Sherlock's bigger one, and squeezed, holding eye contact with each other for a few long seconds.

“ Shall we?” John asked eventually, smiling.

A loving smile spread over Sherlock's lips, returning the solid squeeze of John's hand, and he nodded.

** End **

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in ballet, and have never seen Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, you really should, it's captivating. Especially Adam Cooper who plays the original Swan (and at the end of the Billy Elliot movie he plays adult Billy) has an incredible aura, and there I thought that Sherlock has this same intense presence, and would be perfect for the role.  
> The music video I mention is real. It's from The Dark Tenor, and it stars a female ballet dancer clad only in white with her skin covered in white make-up. I was very impressed by it. You have to look at it:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99qCyaP4vq8  
> Though, The Dark Tenor doesn't sing O Fortuna, but a song called Love is light. The version of O Fortuna I imagined for the video instead is sung by tenor Vincent Niclo. You should watch/hear this as well. It's great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGLIyk56ZRo
> 
> And last but not least a little fanart:  
> https://celedansuniverse.deviantart.com/art/Matthew-Bourne-s-Swan-Lake-578874443


End file.
